The dream-world vanished; the rose-clustered portals closed, and she came back to the real life—came back, as we all must. But, oh! woe for the day when the fairy gates close with a dreary clang, and we know that never for us can they open again “till these hearts be clay.” She passed into the outer room, where Joseph was very busily engaged in helping, or hindering his grandmother to array herself in the worn shawl and bonnet, which had so long before done duty enough to have entitled them to pass out of service. “Grandma and I are going for a little walk, Anna,” he said, in his quaint way. “I think it’ll do her good.” “Dear boy,” said the old lady, with her sweet smile; “there never was such a thoughtful creature.” “I am sure it _will_ do you good, grandmother,” Anna said; “but you must put my shawl on under yours; the wind blows cold.” Joseph ran off to get it, and the pair wrapped the old lady up with a fondness and attention which many a rich woman would give all her India shawls, and diamonds to boot, to receive from her children. Then Joseph led her carefully down the stairs, and Anna brought her pile of work to the fire, and sat down in her grandmother’s chair. She could not afford to waste the precious moments with so much dependent upon her exertions; but fast as her fingers flew, still faster travelled her young, unwearied thoughts; and that they were pleasant ones one could have told by the smile that stole every now and then, like a ray of sunlight, across her mouth, brightening her beauty into something positively dazzling. There was a quick knock at the door, but supposing it to be some of the neighbor’s children on an errand, Anna did not pause in her work, calling out dreamily, “Come in.” The door opened hesitatingly, and Anna added, “Is it you, little Alice Romaine?” “It is not little Alice; but may I come in?” Anna sprang to her feet in astonishment and turned toward the door, and stood confronting Georgiana Halstead. “Excuse me,” Georgiana said, hastily, in her graceful, childlike way. “I thought Rowena might come to see Rebecca. You are not vexed, are you?” In spite of her retired life, Anna was too truly a lady to feel either confusion or embarrassment; not even shame at the exposure of their dreary poverty, but one of those flashes of thoughts, which travel like lightning through the mind, struck her painfully as she looked at Georgiana Halstead standing there in her beautiful dress, like the goddess of luxury come to look poverty in the face, and find out what it was like. “I have been wanting to come so much,” continued the girl, going up to Anna and holding out her hand. “You are very kind,” she answered, pleasantly enough; and the momentary bitterness died in cordial admiration of her visitor’s loveliness.