"You are going to be so happy," Lulu whispers again in her loving tone, "and, Gracie," with a fluttering sigh. "I have been so happy in anticipating your happiness!" Touched to the depths of her warm heart Grace bends to leave a tender kiss on the pale brow, and promising to come again, goes out. Her adieus are hastily made to the rest, and once more in the little pony phaeton she skims over the miles between her and home. The bright roses that blossom on her cheeks are sources of undisguised admiration to Norah, who opines that Mrs. Winans ought to drive every evening. "Never mind about that, Norah," she answers, indifferently; "only please brush my curls over fresh, and give me a pretty white muslin dress to wear this evening." And Norah obeys in secret wonder at her mistress' suddenly-developed vanity. She is lovely enough to be vain when Norah turns her off her hands as "finished." All that golden glory of ringlets ripples away from the fair, pure brow enchantingly, sweeping to her dainty waist in a sweet girlish fashion. A faint flush covers her cheeks, two stars burn in the violet depths of her eyes, her lips are unwontedly tender and sweet. The slim, perfect figure is draped in the misty folds of a snowy muslin, whose loose sleeves falling open, leave bare her dimpled white arms and hands. The low frill of misty lace leaves the white curve of her throat exposed, with no other ornament than a tea-rose budding against its lovely whiteness. So as lovely as one can fancy Eve, fresh from the hands of her Creator, the beautiful, unhappy, wronged young wife passed from her dressing-room and into that lovely shrine of her garnered griefs that saw what the world saw not--the desolation of that sensitive heart--the nursery of her loved, lost baby! CHAPTER XXXI. AT HER FEET. "But all in vain, to thought's tumultuous flow I strive to give the strength of glowing words; The waves of feeling, tossing to and fro, In broken music o'er my heart's loose chords, Give but their fainting echoes from my soul, As through its silent depths their wild, swift currents roll." --AMELIA B. WELBY. "Hope's precious pearl in sorrow's cup, Unmelted at the bottom lay, To shine again when all drunk up, The bitterness should pass away." --MOORE'S LOVES OF THE ANGELS. She pushes back the sliding-doors between her own room and this one, letting the soft, clear light flood its dim recesses, opens the windows admitting the balmy sea breeze and the moonlight. Divided then between suspense and pain she throws upward the lace canopy and stands leaning once more over the empty crib that seems to her now more like a grave. "It was May, 1870, when we quarreled here over baby's crib," she muses to herself, "and it seems as if years, and years, and years have gone over my head--yet this is only May, 1874. Ah! me."