rice for your dinner."

"What time is it?"

"Near three."

I opened the door of the dining-room; the table was laid, and I walked
round it, on a tour of inspection.

"I thought you might as well have your dinner, all at once," said
Fanny, by the window, with her feet tucked up on the rounds of her
chair. "Here it is."

"I perceive. Who arranged it?"

"Me and Paddy Margaret."

"How many tablecloths have we?"

"Plenty. I thought as you didn't seem to care about any regular hour
for dinner, and made us all wait, _I_ needn't be particular; besides,
I am not the waiter, you know."

She had set on the dishes used in the kitchen. I pulled off cloth and
all--the dishes crashed, of course--and sat down on the floor, picking
out the remains for my repast.

"What will Mr. Morgeson say?" she asked, turning very red.

"Shall you clear away this rubbish by the time he comes home?"

"Why, I must, mustn't I?"

"I hope so. Where's Veronica?"

"She has been gone since twelve; Sam carried her to Temperance's
house."

I continued my meal. Fanny brought a chair for me, which I did not
take. I scarcely tasted what I ate. A wall had risen up suddenly
before me, which divided me from my dreams; I was inside it, on a
prosaic domain I must henceforth be confined to. The unthought-of
result of mother's death--disorganization, began to show itself. The
individuality which had kept the weakness and faults of our family
life in abeyance must have been powerful; and I had never recognized
it! I attempted to analyze this influence, so strong, yet so
invisibly produced. I thought of her mildness, her dreamy habits, her
indifference, and her incapacity of comprehending natures unlike her
own. Would endowment of character explain it--that faculty which
we could not change, give, or take? Character was a mysterious and
indestructible fact, and a fact that I had had little respect for.
Upon what a false basis I had gone--a basis of extremes. I had seen
men as trees walking; that was my experience.

"You'll choke yourself with that dry bread," exclaimed Fanny, really
concerned at my abstraction.

"Where is my trunk? Did you unlock it?"

"I took from it what you needed at the time: but it is not unpacked,
and it is in the upper hall closet."

She was picking up the broken delf meekly.

"Did you see a small bag I brought? And where's my satchel? Good
heavens! What has made me put off that letter so? For I have thought
of it, and y