"You're thinking of some Miss Pinkerton's academy. Don't you know that one's own life would be quite independent of the schoolwork? And I might make such a line possible for Tory. There's a great deal of spirit in the life." "Would it go on being enough for you?" Amethyst laughed again, but this time with some bitterness. "Perhaps not," she said, shortly. "I wonder what would! But there are some things I should like to take up again." "Amethyst--in some ways you are more like what you were when first you came home, than you have been since--since you were engaged to Lucian." "I am free," said Amethyst. "That past is over really, over now for good and all. It has gone, I don't know where; and I have got, thank heaven! to reconcile myself to no good fortune. I need not tell myself any more lies, nor pare down my feelings to suit my fate. If I am a High School mistress, and want the moon and the sun and the stars, why, I can cry for them. But if I'd married that rich, good, generous man, I should never have dared to wish for anything as long as I lived. Every wish would have opened the gates into the universe. Well, now I'm outside the bars, and it _is_ the universe, and full of stars, and I can look at them, if I can't have them." As Amethyst uttered this tirade, she lifted up her head, and her lovely face glowed with eagerness. Una listened, but her soul gave no response. Amethyst saw her blank expression, and stopped with a blush. "Oh," she said, "if you only knew what it is to let myself go! Of course I know we are in for a hateful existence--troubles and bothers of every sort. But I feel as if I should pull through! Nothing can be worse than the last week or two." "It has been bad enough," said Una, sighing. "Life has a great many sides, as I always told you," said Amethyst. "Work is a great help, and, as Tory says, _I'm_ tired of men. I wish I could go to Newnham or Girton, and take a first-class. But who's to pay?" "You, Amethyst! Oh, don't take to being blue because you're disappointed!" "You little behind-the-world fossil! Blue! Cultured is the proper expression. And how am I disappointed? Una, I'm more in love with my real true natural self than with any one else at present. And I _should_ like to go to college--I read an article about it the other day. I should like a little room to fit up, and to have tea with my friends, and debates, and discussions, and new ideas. Then I needn't think about being married for the next five years. But there, that packing is finished. I'll go for a walk, the country is delightful after London." She went away as she spoke, and Una heard her run down the long staircase, light of foot, and seemingly light of heart. "I shall never be able to `let myself go,' as long as I live," thought she, with a weary sigh. "And I see no stars anywhere. Only-- sometimes--that great Light--and then darkness."