,
had not suggested that I should shorten my visit. On the contrary, it
had freed me from any regard or fear of her opinion. I had discovered
her limits.

It was Saturday afternoon. Reflecting that I had but a few days more
for Belem, and summing up the events of my visit and the people I had
met, their fashions and differences, I unrolled a tolerable panorama,
with patches in it of vivid color, and laid it away in my memory, to
be unrolled again at some future time. Then a faint shadow dropped
across my mind like a curtain, the first that clouded my royal palace,
my mental paradise!

I sighed. Joyless, vacant, barren hours prefigured themselves to me,
drifting through my brain, till their vacant shapes crowded it into
darkness. I must do something! I would go out; a walk would be good
for me. Moreover, wishing to purchase a parting gift for Adelaide and
Ann, I would go alone. Wandering from shop to shop in Norfolk Street,
without finding the articles I desired, I turned into a street which
crossed it, and found the right shop. Seeing Drummond Street on an old
gable-end house, a desire to exchange with some one a language which
differed from my thoughts prompted me to look up Mrs. Hepburn. I soon
came to her house, and knocked at the door, which Mari opened. The
current was already changed, as I followed her into a room different
from the one where I had seen Mrs. Hepburn. It was dull of aspect,
long and narrow, with one large window opening on the old-fashioned
garden, and from which I saw a discolored marble Flora. Mrs. Hepburn
was by the window, in her high chair. She held out her hand and
thanked me for coming to see an old woman. Motioning her head toward a
dark corner, she said, "There is a young man who likes occasionally to
visit an old woman also."

The young man, twenty-nine years old, was Desmond. He crossed the
room and offered me his hand. We had not spoken since we parted at
the stairs that memorable night. He hastily brought chairs, and placed
them near Mrs. Hepburn, who seized her spectacles, which were on a
silk workbag beside her, scanned us through them, and exclaimed, "Ah
ha! what is this?"

"Is it something in me, ma'am?" said Desmond, putting his head before
my face so that it was hid from her.

"Something in both of you; thief! thief!"

She rubbed her frail hand against my sleeve, muttering, "See now,
so!--the same characteristics."

"I spoke of the difference of the rooms; the one we we