“Do you wish me,” I said to Zenobia, “to announce in town, and at the watering-places, your purpose to deliver a course of lectures on the rights of women?”

“Women possess no rights,” said Zenobia, with a half-melancholy smile; “or, at all events, only little girls and grandmothers would have the force to exercise them.”

She gave me her hand freely and kindly, and looked at me, I thought, with a pitying expression in her eyes; nor was there any settled light of joy in them on her own behalf, but a troubled and passionate flame, flickering and fitful.

“I regret, on the whole, that you are leaving us,” she said; “and all the more, since I feel that this phase of our life is finished, and can never be lived over again.  Do you know, Mr. Coverdale, that I have been several times on the point of making you my confidant, for lack of a better and wiser one?  But you are too young to be my father confessor; and you would not thank me for treating you like one of those good little handmaidens who share the bosom secrets of a tragedy-queen.”

“I would, at least, be loyal and faithful,” answered I; “and would counsel you with an honest purpose, if not wisely.”

“Yes,” said Zenobia, “you would be only too wise, too honest.  Honesty and wisdom are such a delightful pastime, at another person’s expense!”

“Ah, Zenobia,” I exclaimed, “if you would but let me speak!”

“By no means,” she replied, “especially when you have just resumed the whole series of social conventionalisms, together with that strait-bodied coat.  I would as lief open my heart to a lawyer or a clergyman!  No, no, Mr. Coverdale; if I choose a counsellor, in the present aspect of my affairs, it must be either an angel or a madman; and I rather apprehend that the latter would be likeliest of the two to speak the fitting word.  It needs a wild steersman when we voyage through chaos!  The anchor is up,—­farewell!”

Priscilla, as soon as dinner was over, had betaken herself into a corner, and set to work on a little purse.  As I approached her, she let her eyes rest on me with a calm, serious look; for, with all her delicacy of nerves, there was a singular self-possession in Priscilla, and her sensibilities seemed to lie sheltered from ordinary commotion, like the water in a deep well.

“Will you give me that purse, Priscilla,” said I, “as a parting keepsake?”

“Yes,” she answered, “if you will wait till it is finished.”

“I must not wait, even for that,” I replied.  “Shall I find you here, on my return?”

“I never wish to go away,” said she.

“I have sometimes thought,” observed I, smiling, “that you, Priscilla, are a little prophetess, or, at least, that you have spiritual intimations respecting matters which are dark to us grosser people.  If that be the case, I should like to ask you what is about to happen; for I am tormented with a strong foreboding that, were I to return even so soon as to-morrow morning, I should find everything changed.  Have you any impressions of this nature?”