cannot tell you how utterly
the past has gone, or how insignificant the result has proved."

"Alice," said father, "can you carve?"

"Splendidly."

"Come and sit at the foot of my table; Mr. Somers will take charge of
the smaller one."

"With pleasure."

"Slip out," whispered Fanny, "and look at the table; Temperance wants
you."

"For the Lord's sake!" cried Temperance, "say whether things are
ship-shape."

I was surprised at the taste she had displayed, and told her so.

"For once I have tried to do my best," she said; "all for Verry. Call
'em in; the turkeys will be on in a whiffle."

Tables were set in the hall, as well as in the dining-room. "They
must sit down," she continued, "so that they may eat their victuals
in peace." The supper was a relief to Veronica, and I blessed
father's forethought. Nobody was exactly merry, but there was a proper
cheerfulness. Temperance, Fanny, and Manuel were in attendance; the
latter spilled a good deal of coffee on the carpet in his enjoyment of
the scene; and when he saw Veronica take the flowers in her hand, he
exclaimed, "Santa Maria!"

Everybody turned to look at him.

"What are you doing here, Manuel?" asked Ben.

"I wait on the senoritas," he answered. "Take plum-duff?"

Everybody laughed.

"Do you like widows?" whispered Fanny at the back of my chair. I made
a sign to her to attend to her business, but, as she suggested, looked
at Alice. At that moment she and father were drinking wine together. I
thought her handsomer than ever; she had expanded into a fair, smooth
middle age.

The talking and clattering melted vaguely into my ears; I was a
lay-figure in the scene, and my soul wandered elsewhere. Mr. Somers
began to fidget gently, which father perceiving, rose from the table.
Soon after the guests departed. The remains of the feast vanished; the
fires burnt down, "winding sheets" wrapped the flame of the candles,
and suppressed gaping set in.

The flowers, left to themselves, began to give out odors which
perfumed the rooms. I went about extinguishing the waning candles and
stifling the dying fires, finished my work, and was going upstairs
when I heard Veronica playing, and stopped to listen. It was not a
paean nor a lament that she played, but a fluctuating, vibratory air,
expressive of mutation. I hung over the stair-railing after she had
ceased, convinced that she had been playing for herself a farewell,
which freed me from my bond to her. Mr. Som