The fire on the hearth burned low and clear; the old worn furniture stood out cheerfully in the red glow, and threw a maze of twisted shadow on the floor.

But the glow was all that was cheerful.

To-morrow, when the hard daylight should jeer away the screening shadows, it would unbare a desolate, shabby home.

She knew; struck with the white leprosy of poverty; the blank walls, the faded hangings, the old stone house itself, looking vacantly out on the fields with a pitiful significance of loss.

Upon the mantel-shelf there was a small marble figure, one of the Dancing Graces: the other two were gone, gone in pledge.