e alarming change in the--a--atmospheric
phenomena, my child. I would have you on your guard!" and then he would
look at her and sigh, shake his head, and apply himself to the cold
chicken with melancholy vigor.

Hilda thought nothing of her father's remarks,--papa was always talking
nonsense, and she thought she always understood him perfectly. It did
occur to her, however, to wonder at her mother's leaving her out on all
her shopping expeditions. Hilda rather prided herself on her skill in
matching shades and selecting fabrics, and mamma was generally glad of
her assistance in all such matters. However, perhaps it was only
under-clothing and house-linen, and such things that she was buying. All
that was the prosy part of shopping. It was the poetry of it that Hilda
loved,--the shimmer of silk and satin, the rich shadows in velvet, the
cool, airy fluttering of lawn and muslin and lace. So the girl went on
her usual way, finding life a little dull, a little tiresome, and most
people rather stupid, but everything on the whole much as usual, if her
head only would not ache so; and it was without a shadow of suspicion
that she obeyed one morning her mother's summons to come and see her in
her dressing-room.

Mr. Graham always spoke of his wife's dressing-room as "the citadel." It
was absolutely impregnable, he said. In the open field of the
drawing-room or the broken country of the dining-room it might be
possible--he had never known such a thing to occur, but still it _might_
be possible--for the commander-in-chief to sustain a defeat; but once
intrenched behind the walls of the citadel, horse, foot, and dragoons
might storm and charge upon her, but they could not gain an inch. Not an
inch, sir! True it was that Mrs. Graham always felt strongest in this
particular room. She laughed about it, but acknowledged the fact. Here,
on the wall, hung a certain picture which was always an inspiration to
her. Here, on the shelf above her desk, were the books of her heart, the
few tried friends to whom she turned for help and counsel when things
puzzled her. (Mrs. Graham was never disheartened. She didn't believe
there was such a word. She was only "puzzled" sometimes, until she saw
her way and her duty clear before her, and then she went straight
forward, over a mountain or through a stone wall, as the case might
be.) Here, in the drawer of her little work-table, were some relics,--a
tiny, half-worn shoe, a little doll, a sweet bab