While this passed, as Zenobia’s hand was extended, I had applied the very slightest touch of my fingers to her own.  In spite of an external freedom, her manner made me sensible that we stood upon no real terms of confidence.  The thought came sadly across me, how great was the contrast betwixt this interview and our first meeting.  Then, in the warm light of the country fireside, Zenobia had greeted me cheerily and hopefully, with a full sisterly grasp of the hand, conveying as much kindness in it as other women could have evinced by the pressure of both arms around my neck, or by yielding a cheek to the brotherly salute.  The difference was as complete as between her appearance at that time—­so simply attired, and with only the one superb flower in her hair—­and now, when her beauty was set off by all that dress and ornament could do for it.  And they did much.  Not, indeed, that they created or added anything to what Nature had lavishly done for Zenobia.  But, those costly robes which she had on, those flaming jewels on her neck, served as lamps to display the personal advantages which required nothing less than such an illumination to be fully seen.  Even her characteristic flower, though it seemed to be still there, had undergone a cold and bright transfiguration; it was a flower exquisitely imitated in jeweller’s work, and imparting the last touch that transformed Zenobia into a work of art.

“I scarcely feel,” I could not forbear saying, “as if we had ever met before.  How many years ago it seems since we last sat beneath Eliot’s pulpit, with Hollingsworth extended on the fallen leaves, and Priscilla at his feet!  Can it be, Zenobia, that you ever really numbered yourself with our little band of earnest, thoughtful, philanthropic laborers?”

“Those ideas have their time and place,” she answered coldly.  “But I fancy it must be a very circumscribed mind that can find room for no other.”

Her manner bewildered me.  Literally, moreover, I was dazzled by the brilliancy of the room.  A chandelier hung down in the centre, glowing with I know not how many lights; there were separate lamps, also, on two or three tables, and on marble brackets, adding their white radiance to that of the chandelier.  The furniture was exceedingly rich.  Fresh from our old farmhouse, with its homely board and benches in the dining-room, and a few wicker chairs in the best parlor, it struck me that here was the fulfilment of every fantasy of an imagination revelling in various methods of costly self-indulgence and splendid ease.  Pictures, marbles, vases,—­in brief, more shapes of luxury than there could be any object in enumerating, except for an auctioneer’s advertisement,—­and the whole repeated and doubled by the reflection of a great mirror, which showed me Zenobia’s proud figure, likewise, and my own.  It cost me, I acknowledge, a bitter sense of shame, to perceive in myself a positive effort to bear up against the effect