“Persuade—­do persuade father that everything will be well.  Some persons are to be trusted.  Make him feel it.  I know that I am life itself to Edward.  He has lived as men do, and he can judge, and he knows that there never was a wife who brought a heart to her husband like mine to him.  He wants to think, or he wants to smoke, and he leaves me; but, oh! when he returns, he can scarcely believe that he has me, his joy is so great.  He looks like a glad thankful child, and he has the manliest of faces.  It is generally thoughtful; you might think it hard, at first sight.

“But you must be beautiful to please some men.  You will laugh—­I have really got the habit of talking to my face and all myself in the glass.  Rhoda would think me cracked.  And it is really true that I was never so humble about my good looks.  You used to spoil me at home—­you and that wicked old Mother Dumpling, and our own dear mother, Rhoda—­oh! mother, mother!  I wish I had always thought of you looking down on me!  You made me so vain—­much more vain than I let you see I was.  There were times when it is quite true I thought myself a princess.  I am not worse-looking now, but I suppose I desire to be so beautiful that nothing satisfies me.

“A spot on my neck gives me a dreadful fright.  If my hair comes out much when I comb it, it sets my heart beating; and it is a daily misery to me that my hands are larger than they should be, belonging to Edward’s ‘resplendent wife.’  I thank heaven that you and I always saw the necessity of being careful of our fingernails.  My feet are of moderate size, though they are not French feet, as Edward says.  No:  I shall never dance.  He sent me to the dancing-master in London, but it was too late.  But I have been complimented on my walking, and that seems to please Edward.  He does not dance (or mind dancing) himself, only he does not like me to miss one perfection.  It is his love.  Oh! if I have seemed to let you suppose he does not love me as ever, do not think it.  He is most tender and true to me.  Addio!  I am signora, you are signorina.

“They have such pretty manners to us over here.  Edward says they think less of women:  I say they think more.  But I feel he must be right.  Oh, my dear, cold, loving, innocent sister! put out your arms; I shall feel them round me, and kiss you, kiss you for ever!”

Onward from city to city, like a radiation of light from the old farm-house, where so little of it was, Dahlia continued her journey; and then, without a warning, with only a word to say that she neared Rome, the letters ceased.  A chord snapped in Rhoda’s bosom.  While she was hearing from her sister almost weekly, her confidence was buoyed on a summer sea.  In the silence it fell upon a dread.  She had no answer in her mind for her father’s unspoken dissatisfaction, and she had to conceal her cruel anxiety.  There was an interval of two months:  a blank fell charged with apprehension that was like the humming of a toneless wind before storm; worse than the storm, for any human thing to bear.