The music still soared and floated on through the windows into the moonlight; one by one the older part of my guests left me; only a few of the gayest and youngest still persevered in that indefatigable waltz, the oval room looking as if a score of bubbles were playing hop and skip,--for in the crinoline expansions the gentlemen's black pen-and-ink outlines were all lost. At length even these went; the music died; its soul went up with a long, broken cry; its body was put piecemeal into several green bags, shouldered by stout Germans, and carried quite out of sight. The servants gathered and set away such things as were most needful to be arranged, put out the lights, locked the doors and windows, and went to bed. Mrs. Reading, my good housekeeper, begged me to go up stairs. "You look so tired, Miss Clara!" "So I am, Delia!" said I. "I will rest. Go to bed you, and I shall come presently." I heard her heavy steps ascend the stairs; I heard the door of her room close, creaking. How could I sleep? I knew very well what the coming day would bring; I knew why Harry Tempest preferred to drive. I had need of something beside rest, for sleep was impossible; I needed calmness, quiet, enough poise to ask myself a momentous question, and be candidly answered. This quiet was not to be found in my room, I well knew; every bit of its furniture, its drapery, was haunted, and in any hour of emotion the latent ghosts came out upon me in swarms; the quaint mandarins with crooked eyes and fat cheeks had eyed me a thousand times when Elsie's arm was clasped over my neck, and with her head upon my shoulder we lay and laughed, when we should have been dressing, at those Chinese chintz curtains. Elsie was gone; if she had been here, I had been at once counselled. Rest there, dead Past!--I could not go to my bedroom. The green-house opened from the large parlor by a sash-door. At this season of the year the glazed roof and sides were withdrawn or lowered, but at night the lower sashes were drawn up and fastened, lest incursive cats or dogs should destroy my flowers. The great Newfoundland that was our guard slept on the floor here, since it was the weakest spot for any ill-meaning visitors to enter at.