The mists that had obscured her intellect, began now, however, to clear away; and it was not long before she pronounced herself quite satisfied on all points, even on the vexed and tortured question of that "last column," and I was released from my task. I did not doubt the sincerity of Mrs. Roberts' rather meagre thanks, nor the truthfulness of her slight commendation of my patience. It was not in her way to flatter, and I knew that for some cause she distrusted me, and that whatever praise she awarded me, was fairly wrung from her by her stubborn sense of justice. Though I knew Mrs. Roberts had been generalling this morning, there was that about her that forbade my doubting her habitual truthfulness. I merely replied that she was welcome to the assistance I had been able to give her, and with a weary step I left the room. At the door I found Tigre waiting for me with wistful earnestness in his erected ears and attentive eyes. I took him in my arms, and carried him into my own room, where I tried to enter with spirit into the frolic he seemed to desire. But it proved a miserable failure; I could not enjoy that or anything else; my head ached "splittingly," and the sunshine streaming in at the window made it worse, and playing with Tigre made it worse, and reading, writing, thinking, all made it worse. What should I do? I hadn't even the spirit to go out into the fresh air; but, leaning wearily on the dressing-table, counted the heads on my bracelet, and wondered that I could have been so happy this morning. By and by, I summoned sufficient energy to smooth my hair, and bathe my head with eau de Cologne; then, calling Tigre, I concluded to go to the library for a book. I found that apartment rather more endurable than my own just then, as the sun did not come in there at that hour of the morning, and the light was very subdued, and the room was quietness itself; so, taking a book from the table, I arranged the cushions of the sofa alluringly, and motioning Tigre to his place beside me, sat down to reading. It would have been a thrilling book that could have riveted my wandering thoughts that morning; and unluckily the book I had chosen was very far from that stamp; it was a third-rate novel of the highly wrought order, into whose pages characters, incidents, scenes, were crowded in such bewildering profusion, that one's appreciative powers were fagged out and exhausted, before the first chapter was accomplished, and, like a restaurant dinner, where all the dishes taste alike, there was but one flavor to the whole array of dramatis personæ from heroine to _bête noire;_ but "one gravy" for roast, bouilli, and ragout. The wearying tide of adjectives and interjections stunned my senses; the book slipped from my hands, and, leaning my head on the cushions, my eyes closed, and with one arm round Tigre and the other under my head, I slept, realizing even in sleep that the bracelet touched my cheek.