She had set on the dishes used in the kitchen.  I pulled off cloth and all—­the dishes crashed, of course—­and sat down on the floor, picking out the remains for my repast.

“What will Mr. Morgeson say?” she asked, turning very red.

“Shall you clear away this rubbish by the time he comes home?”

“Why, I must, mustn’t I?”

“I hope so.  Where’s Veronica?”

“She has been gone since twelve; Sam carried her to Temperance’s house.”

I continued my meal.  Fanny brought a chair for me, which I did not take.  I scarcely tasted what I ate.  A wall had risen up suddenly before me, which divided me from my dreams; I was inside it, on a prosaic domain I must henceforth be confined to.  The unthought-of result of mother’s death—­disorganization, began to show itself.  The individuality which had kept the weakness and faults of our family life in abeyance must have been powerful; and I had never recognized it!  I attempted to analyze this influence, so strong, yet so invisibly produced.  I thought of her mildness, her dreamy habits, her indifference, and her incapacity of comprehending natures unlike her own.  Would endowment of character explain it—­that faculty which we could not change, give, or take?  Character was a mysterious and indestructible fact, and a fact that I had had little respect for.  Upon what a false basis I had gone—­a basis of extremes.  I had seen men as trees walking; that was my experience.

“You’ll choke yourself with that dry bread,” exclaimed Fanny, really concerned at my abstraction.

“Where is my trunk?  Did you unlock it?”

“I took from it what you needed at the time:  but it is not unpacked, and it is in the upper hall closet.”

She was picking up the broken delf meekly.

“Did you see a small bag I brought?  And where’s my satchel?  Good heavens!  What has made me put off that letter so?  For I have thought of it, and yet I have kept it back.”

“It is safe, in your closet, Miss Cassandra; and the box is there.”

“Aunt Merce,” I called, “will you have nothing to eat?”

She laughed hysterically, when she saw what I had done.

“Where is Hepsey, Aunt Merce?”

“She goes to bed after dinner, you know, for an hour or two.”

“She must go from here.”

“Oh!” they both chorused, “what for?”

“She is too old.”

“She has money, and a good house,” said Aunt Merce, “if she must go.  I wonder how Mary stood it so long.”

“Turn ’em off,” said Fanny, “when they grow useless.”

Aunt Merce reddened, and looked hurt.

“I shall keep you; look sharp now after your own disinterestedness.”