"Poor mamma," she said to herself, glancing through the window, as she walked quickly to and fro, "poor mamma. If she could only come out and walk, and feel the fresh air on her face, and get away from Aunt Harriet. I believe I was contemptible to come away and leave her. I can see Aunt Harriet is saying something dreadful, from mamma's expression. I wish I could kill her." Missy allowed herself to think in highly colored language. She had so often said to herself that she would like to strangle Aunt Harriet, to drown her with her own hands, to hang her, that she had omitted to perceive that it wasn't altogether right. She stood at the window looking in, holding her cloak together with one hand, and with the other holding up her dress from the floor of the piazza, which was wet with dew. So she had no hand left to clench as she looked at her; but she set her teeth together vindictively and knit her brow. "If ever there was a wicked woman!" she exclaimed below her breath. She certainly wasn't a handsome woman, as Missy looked at her, sitting in rather a stiff chair by the fire-place, with her feet on a stool. She was heavily built, and her clothes were put on awkwardly, as if they did not belong to her, or had not been put on by her. She was nodding her head in a peremptory way as she said the thing that Missy was sure was distressing her mother. Then Missy watched while her mother, with a look of more open suffering than was usual with her, leaned her head back upon the pillows, and pressed her hands silently together. "How pretty she is, poor mamma," she thought. "Every one admires her, though she is so faded and suffering. Beauty is a great gift," and then she began slowly to walk up and down, gazing in at the windows as she passed them, and looking at the picture framed by the hangings within. The light of the fire and the light of the lamp both fell on the reclining figure of her mother. Her face had resumed its ordinary quiet, and her graceful white hands were lying unclasped on the rich shawl spread over her. Her face was still beautiful in outline; her hair was brown and soft; there was something pathetic in her eyes. She was graceful, refined and elegant, the sort of woman that men always serve with alacrity and a shade of chivalry, even when she is faded and no longer young. She was dependent and not particularly practical; but there were always plenty to take care of her, and to do the part of life for which she was unfitted. If a woman can't take care of herself, there are generally enough ready to do it for her. CHAPTER II. ST. JOHN.