“Good-night,” said Martha, softly, as she glided into the little chamber allotted to her. Poor Martha! Save Nelly's, hers was the saddest heart beneath that roof. For the first time in all her long years of trial, a ray of doubt, a flash of infidelity had broken upon her mind, and the thought of her sister-in-law's infallibility became for a moment suspected. It was not that abused and outraged submission was goaded into rebellion; it was dormant reason that was suddenly startled into a passing wakefulness. It was like one of those fitful gleams of intelligence which now and then dart across the vacuity of dulled intellects, and, like such, it was only a meteor-flash, and left no trace of light behind it. Even in all its briefness the anguish it gave was intense; it was the delusion of a whole life rent asunder at once, and the same shock which should convulse the moral world of her thoughts would rob her of all the pleasantest fancies of her existence. If Zoe were not all goodness and all genius, what was to become of all the household gods of the Villino? Titians would moulder away into stained and smoked panels; “Sèvres” and “Saxe” would fall down to pasteboard and starch; carved oak and ebony would resolve themselves into leather; and even the friendship of princes and the devotion of philosophers be only a mockery, a sham, and a snare! Poor Martha! Deprived of these illusions, life was but one unceasing round of toil; while, aided by imagination, she could labor on unwearied. Without a thought of deception, she gloried in the harmless frauds to which she contributed, but could n't resist the contagion of credulity around her. How easily could such a spirit have been moulded to every good gift, and qualities like these have been made to minister to comfort and happiness, and the faith that was given to gilt paper, and glue, and varnish, elevated to all that is highest in the moral and material world! And now they were all in slumber beneath that roof,--all save one. Poor Nelly sat at her window, tearful and sad. In the momentary excitement of receiving her guests she had forgotten her cares; but now they came back upon her, coupled with all the fears their wasteful habits could suggest At times she blamed herself for the tame cowardice which beset her, and restrained her from every effort to avert the coming evil; and at times she resigned herself to the gloomy future, with the stern patience of the Indian who saw his canoe swept along into the rapids above the cataract. There was not one to turn to for advice or counsel, and the strength that would have sustained her in any other trial was here sapped by the dread of giving pain to her father. “It would ill become _me_ to give him cause for sorrow,--I, that of all his children have ministered nothing to his pride nor his happiness!” Such was the estimate she held of herself, and such the reasoning that flowed from it. CHAPTER XIX. THE CURSAAL.