And Hermia? Poor girl! She had not found the beauty her sister had lost. Her hair was still the same muddy blonde-brown, although with a latent suggestion of color, and she still brushed it back with the severity of her childhood. Nothing, she had long since concluded, could beautify her, and she would waste no time in the attempt. She was a trifle above medium height, and her thin figure bent a little from the waist. Her skin was as sallow as of yore, and her eyes were dull. She had none of Bessie’s sweetness of expression; her cold, intellectual face just escaped being sullen. Her health was what might be expected of a girl who exercised little and preferred thought to sleep. She had kept the promise made the night she had scratched her sister’s face; during the past fifteen years no one had seen her lose her self-control for a moment. She was as cold as a polar night, and as impassive as an Anglo-American. She was very kind to her sister, and did what she could to help her. She taught the children; and, though with much private rebellion, she frequently made their clothes and did the marketing. Frank and Bessie regarded her with awe and distant admiration, but the children liked her. The professor had taught her until he could teach her no more, and then had earned his subsistence by reading aloud to John Suydam. A year or two before, he had departed for less material duties, with few regrets. But, if Hermia no longer studied, she belonged to several free libraries and read with unflagging vigor. Of late she had taken a deep interest in art, and she spent many hours in the picture galleries of New York. Moreover, she grasped any excuse which took her across the river. With all the fervor of her silent soul she loved New York and hated Brooklyn. She was sitting in the dining-room one evening, helping Lizzie, the oldest child, with her lessons. Lizzie was sleepy, and was droning through her multiplication table, when she happened to glance at her aunt. “You are not paying attention,” she exclaimed, triumphantly; “I don’t believe you’ve heard a word of that old table, and I’m not going to say it over again.” Hermia, whose eyes had been fixed vacantly on the fire, started and took the book from Lizzie’s lap. “Go to bed,” she said; “you are tired, and you know your tables very well.” Lizzie, who was guiltily conscious that she had never known her tables less well, accepted her release with alacrity, kissed her aunt good-night, and ran out of the room. Hermia went to the window and opened it. It looked upon walls and fences, but lineaments were blotted out to-night under a heavy fall of snow. Beyond the lower roofs loomed the tall walls of houses on the neighboring street, momentarily discernible through the wind-parted storm.