"I have made it a little like Venice," cried Millicent excitedly, "only the walls in my bedroom there are hung in silk and all painted in water-color, and the rooms are so high,--you remember the green room in the Palazzo Fortunio, Mrs. Deering, with the nymphs, the sea gods, and the green hobgoblins painted all over it?" "Yes, indeed, Millicent. What a change you have wrought in the spare bedroom. Ralph would hardly recognize it. I see now what was contained in the boxes which so aroused Hal’s curiosity. I am afraid you have made your room too attractive, dear, and that we shall find difficulty in coaxing you out of it into our more prosaic apartments." "Oh, I always live the greater part of my life between my own four walls: I am not a sociable person, I am afraid. At least so Barbara thinks." Barbara said nothing; she was hurt and disappointed. The room, with its strange furnishing, was unnatural to her. She felt, as she looked at Millicent with this new setting which suited her so perfectly, that neither in the room nor in the life of Millicent Almsford was there a place for her. She had eagerly anticipated the advent of this unknown girl, sisterless like herself, who should grow to be so much to her, and in whom she should find the sympathetic friend of whom she had greatly felt the need; and now that she had come, Barbara was bitterly disappointed. Millicent was gracious, winning, full of attractive qualities, intellectually sympathetic to a degree which she had never before known. And yet the tall daughter of the Ranch was cruelly disturbed. "I can be nothing to her; she is complete without me," she had said to her mother; and herein lay the reason for all her disappointment. Living among people to whom her beauty, her talent, and her warmth of heart had been the most poetic features of their lives, Barbara Deering had grown to value men and women according to the amount of good or pleasure she could impart to them. Her life had been one wherein the tears and sighs had been stifled, or hidden in the darkness of her chamber; the laughter and smiles, the bright cheery face, the helping hand always meeting those about her. Children loved her, and old people blessed her for her sympathy and kindness. To her mother and brother she was sun, moon, and stars; and to them every hour of her life was consecrated. Naturally endowed with certain tastes which would have somewhat interfered with the quiet plan of life laid out for her, she had systematically neglected these gifts, sacrificing herself to an imaginary duty which was always before her eyes. She had avoided such pursuits as might have led her aside from the common life of the family; and happiness for her was found in the happiness she could afford to others. Enjoyment to her, unless her dear ones were included in it, was something like a sin; and the pleasure she took in her music gave her pangs of conscience.