_Bartlett._--"Oh, I dare say you wouldn't have done it if you hadn't had a wild ass of the desert to deal with. Well, the old people got used to some little individuality in me, by-and-by, and beyond a suppressed whoop or two from the mother when I came suddenly into the room, they didn't do anything to annoy me directly. But they were anxious every minute for the effect on _her_; and it worried me as much to have _them_ watching _her_ as to have _her_ watching _me_. Of course I knew that she talked this confounded resemblance over with her mother every time I left them, and avoided talking it over with the father." _Cummings._--"But you say the trouble's over now." _Bartlett._--"Oh--_over_! No, it isn't over. When she's with me a while she comes to see that I am not a mere _doppelgänger_. She respites me to that extent. But I have still some small rags of self-esteem dangling about me; and now suppose I should presume to set up for somebody on my own account; the first hint of my caring for her as I do, if she could conceive of anything so atrocious, would tear open all the old sorrows. Ah! I can't think of it. Besides, I tell you, it isn't all over. It's only not so bad as it was. She's subject to relapses, when it's much worse than ever. Why"--Bartlett stands facing his friend, with a half-whimsical, half-desperate smile, as if about to illustrate his point, when Constance and her mother enter the parlour. [Footnote 1: Aftermath.] II. CONSTANCE, MRS. WYATT, BARTLETT, _and_ CUMMINGS. _Constance_, with a quick violent arrest.--"Ah! Oh!" _Mrs. Wyatt._--"Constance, Constance, darling! What's the matter?" _Constance._--"Oh, nothing--nothing." She laughs, nervously. "I thought there was nobody--here; and it--startled me. How do you do, Mr. Cummings?" She goes quickly up to that gentleman, and gives him her hand. "Don't you think it wonderful to find such a day as this, up here, at this time of year?" She struggles to control the panting breath in which she speaks. _Cummings._--"Yes, I supposed I had come quite too late for anything of the sort. You must make haste with your Ponkwasset, Miss Wyatt, or you'll have to paint him with his winter cap on." _Constance._--"Ah, yes! My picture. Mr. Bartlett has been telling you." Her eyes have already wandered away from Cummings, and they now dwell, with a furtive light of reparation and imploring upon Bartlett's disheartened patience: "Good _morning_." It is a delicately tentative salutation, in a low voice, still fluttered by her nervous agitation. _Bartlett_, in dull despair: "_Good_ morning." _Constance._--"How is the light on the mountain this morning?" She drifts deprecatingly up to the picture, near which Bartlett has stolidly kept his place. _Bartlett_, in apathetic inattention.--"Oh, very well, very well indeed, thank you." _Constance_, after a hesitating glance at him.--"Did you like what I had done on it yesterday?" _Bartlett_, very much as before.--"Oh, yes; why not?"