“In my young days,” Aunt Merce remarked, “young girls were not allowed to have fires in their chambers.”

“In our young days, Mercy,” mother replied, “we were not allowed to have much of anything.”

“Fires are not wholesome to sleep by,” Temperance added.

“Miss Veronica never has a fire,” piped Fanny, who had remained, occasionally making a stir with the tongs.

“But she ought to have!” Temperance exclaimed vehemently.  “I do wonder, Mis Morgeson, that you do not insist upon it, though it’s none of my business.”

Father was conducted upstairs, after supper.  The fire was freshly made; the shaded lamp on the table before the sofa and the easy-chair pleased him.  He came often afterward, and stayed so long, sometimes, that I fell asleep, and found him there, when I woke, still smoking and watching the fire.

Veronica looked in at bed-time.  “I recognize you here,” she said as she passed.  But she came back in a few moments in a wrapper, with a comb in her hand, and stood on the hearth combing her hair, which was longer than a mermaid’s.  The fire was grateful to her, and I believe that she was surprised at the fact.

“Why not have a fire in your room, Verry?”

“A fire would put me out.  One belongs in this room, though.  It is the only reality here.”

“What if I should say you provoke me, perverse girl?”

“What if you should?”

She gathered up her hair and shook it round her face, with the same elfish look she wore when she pulled it over her eyes as a child.  It made me feel how much older I was.

“I do not say so, and I will not.”

“I wish you would; I should like to hear something natural from you.”

Fanny, coming in with an armful of wood, heard her.  Instead of putting it on the fire, she laid it on the hearth, and, sitting upon it with an expression of enjoyment, looked at both of us with an expectant air.

“You love mischief, Fanny,” I said.

“Is it mischief for me to look at sisters that don’t love each other?” and, laughing shrilly, she pulled a stick from under her, and threw it on the fire.

Veronica’s eyes shot more sparks than the disturbed coals, for Fanny’s speech enraged her.  Giving her head a toss, which swept her hair behind her shoulders, she darted at Fanny, and picked her up from the wood, with as much ease as if it had been her handkerchief, instead of a girl nearly as heavy as herself.  I started up.

“Sit still,” she said to me, in her low, inflexible voice, holding Fanny against the wall.  “I must attend to this little demon.  Do you dare to think,” addressing Fanny with a gentle vehemence, “that what you have just said, is true of me?  Are you, with your small, starved spirit, equal to any judgment against her? I admire her; you do, too.  I love her, and I love you, you pitiful, ignorant brat.”