of anguish, she spoke of the deliciousness of loving:  of knowing one to whom she abandoned her will and her destiny, until, seeing how beautiful a bloom love threw upon the tearful worn face of her sister, Rhoda was impressed by a mystical veneration for this man, and readily believed him to be above all other men, if not superhuman:  for she was of an age and an imagination to conceive a spiritual pre-eminence over the weakness of mortality.  She thought that one who could so transform her sister, touch her with awe, and give her gracefulness and humility, must be what Dahlia said he was.  She asked shyly for his Christian name; but even so little Dahlia withheld.  It was his wish that Dahlia should keep silence concerning him.

“Have you sworn an oath?” said Rhoda, wonderingly.

“No, dear love,” Dahlia replied; “he only mentioned what he desired.”

Rhoda was ashamed of herself for thinking it strange, and she surrendered her judgement to be stamped by the one who knew him well.

As regarded her uncle, Dahlia admitted that she had behaved forgetfully and unkindly, and promised amendment.  She talked of the Farm as of an old ruin, with nothing but a thin shade of memory threading its walls, and appeared to marvel vaguely that it stood yet.  “Father shall not always want money,” she said.  She was particular in prescribing books for Rhoda to read; good authors, she emphasized, and named books of history, and poets, and quoted their verses.  “For my darling will some day have a dear husband, and he must not look down on her.”  Rhoda shook her head, full sure that she could never be brought to utter such musical words naturally.  “Yes, dearest, when you know what love is,” said Dahlia, in an underbreath.

Could Robert inspire her with the power?  Rhoda looked upon that poor homely young man half-curiously when she returned, and quite dismissed the notion.  Besides she had no feeling for herself.  Her passion was fixed upon her sister, whose record of emotions in the letters from London placed her beyond dull days and nights.  The letters struck many chords.  A less subservient reader would have set them down as variations of the language of infatuation; but Rhoda was responsive to every word and change of mood, from the, “I am unworthy, degraded, wretched,” to “I am blest above the angels.”  If one letter said, “We met yesterday,” Rhoda’s heart beat on to the question, “Shall I see him again to-morrow?” And will she see him?—­has she seen him?—­agitated her and absorbed her thoughts.

So humbly did she follow her sister, without daring to forecast a prospect for her, or dream of an issue, that when on a summer morning a letter was brought in at the breakfast-table, marked “urgent and private,” she opened it, and the first line dazzled her eyes—­the surprise was a shock to her brain.  She rose from her unfinished meal, and walked out into the wide air, feeling as if she walked on thunder.