What a contrast from the little schoolhouse, though it was so much more decorated than a schoolmistress’s little sitting-room has any right to be, or from the drab drawing-room at the Rectory! The more one became acquainted with Mrs. Swinford’s boudoir, the more exquisite it appeared. Those little water-colours which were hung on the walls were worth a small fortune, and a crowd of collectors would have appeared like ravens on the scene if it had been suggested that they could be sold: and the little Italian cabinets between the windows, with their delicate inlayings of ivory--not like the untrained beauty of the East, but fanciful and varied as a dream--were almost as valuable. And then the tempered, delicious warmth, and the softened, delightful light! Yet I think (though, of course, she would not have endured them for a day) that the roughest wooden furniture, and the shabbiest surroundings would have been a sort of relief--for the moment at least--to Mrs. Swinford. She surrounded herself with all these beautiful things, and then she hated them. They never varied, they were lovely and novel for a moment, and then there they hung for years, and never changed. How tired she was of them all! To have broken the delicate frames, and torn up a picture here and there, which was only a piece of paper after all, would have given her a sensation. And yet that would not have done much good; it would have left a visible blank on the wall, which it would have been necessary to fill up, searching far and near through all the studios to find something that would fill its place--which would keep a little movement in life for a short time. But it would be ludicrous to tear up a picture for that reason, and ridicule was more unbearable even than weariness. On this particular occasion, however, the room looked brighter even to her than usual. It was again an evening of soft-falling spring rain. The skies had been one unbroken gray all the afternoon. The soft small flood fell almost unseen over the country, making the young foliage, which did not dislike the wetting, glisten, and washing the colour out of the lilacs, and covering the ground under the fruit-trees with fallen white petals, almost like snow. A day which the lonely lady thought, if ever by chance she glanced from her window, was enough to account for any suicide. And she had been reading the greater part of the day, reading, save the mark! exciting French novels, in which all the ways of breaking the seventh commandment were dwelt upon to the sickening of any appetite. Even Mrs. Swinford, who considered that the chief occupation of life, was a little sick of one after another. The delicacy of the analysis of sentiment, etc., palled upon her after hours of such reading. She would have liked, perhaps, even at her age, if some gay Lothario had entered her boudoir, and led her, or tried to lead her, into those paths which relieve the idle soul: but only to look on while