ever and keep the home bright with youth. Even as he thought of them, the room faded and his own cabin appeared as he had seen it the day before, through the open window, with Cassandra moving about in her quiet, gliding way, haloed with light. Again he would see a picture of another room, all white and gold, with slight French chairs and tables, and couches and cushions, and candelabra of quivering crystals, with pale green walls and gold-framed paintings, and a great, three-cornered piano, massive and dark, where a slight, fair girl sat idly playing tinkling music in keeping with herself and the room, but quite out of keeping with the splendid instrument.
He saw people all about her, chatting, laughing, sipping tea, and eating thin bread and butter. He saw, as if from a distance, another man, himself, in that room, standing near the piano to turn her music, while the tinkling runs and glib, expressionless trills wove in and out, a ceaseless nothing.
She spent years learning to do that, he thought, and any amount of money. Oh, well. She had it to spend, and of what else were they capable—those hands? He could see them fluttering caressingly over the keys, pink, slender, pretty,—and then he saw other hands, somewhat work-worn, not small nor yet too large, but white and shapely. Ah! Of what were they not capable? And the other girl in coarse white homespun, seated before the fire in Hoke Belew's cabin, holding in her arms the small bundle—and her smile, so rare and fleeting!
He saw again the handsome sullen youth in Bishop Towers' garden, regarding him over the hedge with narrowed eyes, and