Sorrow and anxiety and care pressed so heavily and so unceasingly upon that household for several weeks that there was no time for, no thought of, anything but Hiram. Finally, however, the law of routine mercifully reasserted itself; their lives, in habit and in thought, readjusted, conformed to the new conditions, as human lives will, however chaotic has been the havoc that demolished the old routine. Then Adelaide took from her writing desk Ross's letters, which she had glanced at rather than read as they came; when she finished the rereading, or reading, she was not only as unsatisfied as when she began, but puzzled, to boot--and puzzled that she was puzzled. She read them again--it did not take long, for they were brief; even the first letter after he heard of her father's illness filled only the four sides of one sheet, and was written large and loose. "He has sent short letters," said she, "because he did not want to trouble me with long ones at this time." But, though this excuse was as plausible as most of those we invent to assist us to believe what we want to believe, it did not quite banish a certain hollow, hungry feeling, a sense of distaste for such food as the letters did provide. She was not experienced enough to know that the expression of the countenance of a letter is telltale beyond the expression of the countenance of its writer; that the face may be controlled to lie, but never yet were satisfying and fully deceptive lies told upon paper. Without being conscious of the action of the sly, subconscious instinct which prompted it, she began to revolve her friend, Theresa Howland, whose house party Ross was honoring with such an extraordinarily long lingering. "I hope Theresa is seeing that he has a good time," she said. "I suppose he thinks as he says--that he'd only be in the way here. That's a man's view! It's selfish, but who isn't selfish?" Thus, without her being in the least aware of the process, her mind was preparing her for what was about to happen. It is a poor mind, or poorly served by its subconscious half, that is taken wholly by surprise by any blow. There are always forewarnings; and while the surface mind habitually refuses to note them, though they be clear as sunset silhouettes, the subconscious mind is not so stupid--so blind under the sweet spells of that arch-enchanter, vanity.