there was no effort to conceal, that the spirit animating it was intensely human; but it was human of the highest chords of humanity, indifferent to finesse and despising subtleties; gifted to speak, to inspire, and to command all great emotions.  In fact, it was the masque of a dramatic artist in repose.  Tempered by beauty, the robust frame showed that she possessed a royal nature, and could, as a foremost qualification for Art, feel harmoniously.  She might have many of the littlenesses of which women are accused; for Art she promised unspotted excellence; and, adorable as she was by attraction of her sex, she was artist over all.

Emilia found herself on one of the bridges, thinking of this aspect.  Beneath her was the stealing river, with its red intervals, and the fog had got a wider circle.  She could not disengage that face from her mind.  It seemed to say to her, boldly, “I live because success is mine;” and to hint, as with a paler voice, “Death the fruit of failure.”  Could she, Emilia, ever be looked on again by her friends?  The dread of it gave her shudders.  Then, death was certainly easy!  But death took no form in her imagination, as it does to one seeking it.  She desired to forget and to hide her intolerable losses; to have the impostor she felt herself to be buried.  As she walked along she held out her hands, murmuring, “Helpless! useless!” It came upon her as a surprise that one like herself should be allowed to live.  “I don’t want to,” she said; and the neat moment, “I wonder what a drowned woman is like?” She hurried back to the streets and the shops.  The shops failed now to give her distraction, for a stiff and dripping image floated across all the windows, and she was glad to see the shutters being closed; though, when the streets were dark, some friendliness seemed to have gone.  When the streets were quits dark, save for the row of lamps, she walked fast, fearing she knew not what.

A little Italian boy sat doubled over his organ on a doorstep, while a yet smaller girl at his elbow plied him with questions in English.  Emilia stopped before them, and the girl complained to her that the perverse little foreigner would not answer.  Two or three words in his native tongue soon brought his face to view.  Emilia sat down between them, and listened to the prattle of two languages.  The girl said that she never had supper, which was also the case with the boy; so Emilia felt for her purse, and sent the girl with sixpence in search of a shop that sold cafes.  The girl came back with her apron full.  As they were all about to eat, a policeman commanded them to quit the spot, informing them that he knew both them and their dodges.  Emilia stood up, and was taking her little people away, when the policeman, having suddenly changed his accurate opinion of her, said, “You’re giving ’em some supper, miss?  Oh, they must sit down to their suppers, you know!” and walked away, not to be a witness of this infraction