he?"

"Is that from the Greek tragedies?"

"To your places, gentlemen," the floor-manager called, and the band
struck up the Fisher's Hornpipe. At supper, I saw Ben Somers, still
with the pretty girl in blue; but he came to my chair and asked me if
I did not think she was a pretty toy for a man to play with.

"How much wine have you drunk? Enough to do justice to the family
annals?"

"Really, you have been well informed. No, I have _not_ drunk enough
for that; but Mrs. Ryder has sent her virgins home with me. I am
afraid their lamps are upset again. I drink nothing after to-night.
You shall not ask again, 'How much?'"

My fire was out when I reached home. My head was burning and aching.
I was too tired to untwist my hair, and I pulled and dragged at my
dress, which seemed to have a hundred fastenings. Creeping into bed,
I perceived the odor of flowers, and looking at my table discovered a
bunch of white roses.

"Roses are nonsense, and life is nonsense," I thought.

When I opened my eyes, Alice was standing by the bed, with a glass of
roses in her hand.

"Charles put these roses here, hey?"

"I suppose so; throw them out of the window, and me too; my head is
splitting."

"To make amends for not giving you any last night," she went on; "he
is quite childish."

"Can't you unbraid my hair, it hurts my head so?"

She felt my hands. I was in a fever, she said, and ran down for
Charles. "Cass is sick, in spite of your white roses."

"The devil take the roses. Can't you get up, Cassandra?"

"Not now. Go away, will you?"

He left the room abruptly. Alice loosened my hair, bound my head, and
poured cologne-water over me, lamenting all the while that she had not
brought me home; and then went down for some tea, presently returning
to say that Charles had been for Dr. White, who said he would not
come. But he was there shortly afterward. By night I was well again.

Dr. Price gave us a lecture on late hours that week, requesting us, if
we had any interest in our education, or expected him to have any, to
abstain from balls.

Ben Somers disappeared; no one knew where he had gone. The Ryders were
in consternation, for he was an intimate of the family, since he
had gone into Judge Ryder's office, six weeks before. He returned,
however, with a new overcoat trimmed with fur, the same as that with
which my new cloak was trimmed. A great snowstorm began the day of his
return, and blocked us indoors for several days,