HARVAR Copyright, 1860, Copyright, 1871, BY SIDNEY S. HARRIS. Copyright, 1888 and 1893, BY MIRIAM COLES HARRIS. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. 8. A. RUTLEDGE. CHAPTER I. "Heavily hangs the broad sunflower, TENNYSON. IT was the gloomy twilight of a gloomy November day; dark and leaden clouds were fast shutting out every lingering ray of daylight; and the wind, which moaned dismally around the house, was tossing into mad antics the leaves which strewed the playground. The lamps were not lighted yet; of visible fires the pensionnat of St. Catharine's was innocent; a dull, black stove, more or less gigantic according to the size of the apartment, gloomed in every one, and affected favorably the thermometer if not the imagination. We paced untiringly up and down the dim corridor, Nelly, Agnes, and I,-three children, who, by virtue of our youth, ought to have been let off, one would have thought, for some years yet, from the deep depression that was fast settling on our spirits. In truth we were all three very miserable, we thought,― Nelly and Agnes, I am afraid, more so than I, who in common justice ought to have participated deeply in, as I was the chief occasion of, their grief. My trunk was packed and strapped and stood out |