The other sisters were long since gone, scattered north and south with half-grown families; and the big house was almost empty save when they came in troops to visit it.

Harriet’s downward career as an article of human merchandise had passed through what are perhaps not wholly unrecognizable stages.  At first she had been displayed near the entrance for immediate purchase by the unwary.  Then she had been marked down as something that might be secured at a reduced price; but intending buyers preferred to pay more.  By and by even this label was taken off and she became a remnant of stock for which there was no convenient space—­being moved from shelf to shelf, always a little more shop-worn, a little more out of style.  What was really needed was an auction.

Mrs. Conyers did not take much to heart the teachings of her Bible; but it had at least defined for her one point of view:  all creatures worth saving had been saved in pairs.

Bitter as were those years for Harriet, others more humiliating followed.  The maternal attempts having been discontinued, she, desperate with slights and insults, had put forth some efforts of her own.  But it was as though one had been placed in a boat without oars and told to row for life:  the little boat under the influence of cosmic tides had merely drifted into shallows and now lay there—­forgotten.

This morning as she sat idly rocking on the veranda, she felt that negative happiness which consists in the disappearance of a positively disagreeable thing.  Then she began to study how she should spend the forenoon most agreeably.  Isabel was upstairs; she would have been perfectly satisfied to talk with her; but for several mornings Isabel had shown unmistakable preference to be let alone; and in the school of life Harriet had attained the highest proficiency in one branch of knowledge at least—­never to get in anybody’s way.  Victor Fielding lay under the trees with a pipe and a book, but she never ventured near him.

So Harriet bethought herself of a certain friend of hers on the other side of town, Miss Anna Hardage, who lived with her brother, Professor Hardage—­two people to trust.

She put on her hat which unfortunately she had chosen to trim herself, tied a white veil across the upper part of her face and got out her second-best pair of gloves:  Harriet kept her best gloves for her enemies.  In the front yard she pulled a handful of white lilacs (there was some defect here or she would never have carried white lilacs in soiled white gloves); and passed out of the gate.  Her eyes were lighted up with anticipations, but ill must have overtaken her in transit; for when she was seated with Miss Anna in a little side porch looking out on the little green yard, they were dimmed with tears.

“The same old story,” she complained vehemently.  “The same ridicule that has been dinned into my ears since I was a child.”