A pile of unfinished photographs lay on a table near. She looked them over with an expression of weariness. "O the eyes, and noses, and mouths! Why will people so misuse the sunbeams? And this insane woman who refuses to be toned down with India ink, but will have colors to all the curls, and frizzles, and bows and ends, and countless fly-away things she has on her! She looks now more like an accident than a woman. When the colors are put in, she will be a calamity. Only one face among them pleases me--this pretty dear." Selecting the picture of a lovely child, Margaret looked at it with admiring eyes. "So sweet! I wish I had her here this moment with her eyes, and her curls, and her mouth." A sigh broke through the faint smile. There seemed to be a thorn under everything she touched. Laying the picture down, she busied herself in her room, opened drawers and closets and set them in order; gathered the few souvenirs yet remaining to her--letters, photographs, locks of hair--and piled them all into the grate. One folded paper she did not open, but held an instant in fingers that trembled as they clung; then, moaning faintly, threw it on to the pyre. Inside that paper were two locks of hair--both silver-threaded--twined as the two lives had been; her father's and her mother's. The touch of a match, and the smoke of her sacrifice curled up into the morning sky. Then again she came to a stand-still, and looked about for something to do. "I cannot work," she said. "My hand is not steady enough, and my eyes are dim. What was it that Beethoven wrote to his friend? 'At times cheerful, then again sorrowful; waiting to see if fate will listen to us.' Suppose I should drop everything, since I am so nerveless, and wait to see what fate will do." Here again the enemy stood, The picture of waiting that came up before her mind was that of Judge Pyncheon in the _House of the Seven Gables_, sitting and staring blankly as the hours went by--a sight to shriek out at when at length he was found. With a swift pencil this woman's imagination painted a companion picture: the door of her room opening after days of silence; a curious, frightened face looking in; somebody sitting there cold and patient, with half-open eyes, and not a word of welcome or questioning for the intruder. A clock outside struck ten. Margaret rose languidly and dressed for a walk, after pausing to rest. Raising her arms to arrange her hair and bonnet, she felt so faint that for a moment she was obliged to lean forward on her dressing-table. At length she was ready, only one duty left unperformed. Miss Hamilton had not said her prayers that morning, and had not even thought of saying them, or of reproaching herself for the omission--a scandalous omission, truly, for the granddaughter of the Rev. Doctor John Hamilton, and daughter of that excellent but somewhat diluted deacon, John Hamilton, his son. But to pray was to remember; and beside, God had forgotten her, she thought. {39}