of the library to which they had withdrawn. ‘It is nothing in which you have an interest, Ona. Thank heaven you do not always know the price with which the splendors you so love are bought.’ And she did not cry out, ‘O never pay such a price for any joy of mine! Sooner than cost you so dear I would live on crusts and dwell in a garret.’ No, she kept silence, and when in a few minutes later I joined her in the library, it was to find on her usually placid lips, a thin cool smile that struck like ice to my heart, and made it impossible for me to speak.
“But the hardest trial of the day was to hear Mr. Sylvester come in at eleven o’clock—he went out again immediately after dinner—and go upstairs without giving me my usual good night. It was such a grief to me I could not keep still, but hurried to the foot of the stairs in the hopes he would yet remember me and come back. But instead of that, he no sooner saw me than he threw out his hand almost as if he would push me back, and hastened on up the whole winding flight till he reached the refuge of that mysterious room of his at the top of the house.