an incessant round of drudgery of an
almost menial kind. Having arrived at
Eastfield so late in the year, it was arranged that
she should not return to Hazlehurst for the
Christmas holidays. They were not of very
long duration in Mrs. Hatchett's establishment,
and Mabel did not think herself justified
in draining her slender purse by a journey
to her home and back again for only a short
stay. So she made up her mind to wait
until Easter for a sight of her mother and
Dooley.

Mrs. Hatchett was not cruel, or malicious,
or arrogant, unless driven to those vices by
the Moloch whom she worshipped, and to
whom she sacrificed herself quite as much as
others. But she was covetous, and immeasurably
dull.

Mabel passed the Christmas holidays in utter
dreariness and desolation; and still that phrase
can only, strictly speaking, be applied to the
first few days of that period. After a little
while, though all the outward circumstances of
her life remained unaltered, she discovered a
new interest and occupation.

Her discovery of the note in her copy of
Robinson Crusoe had confirmed a vague
impression she had previously entertained, that
Corda's kind friend and her Aunt Mary might
be one and the same person. It had, moreover,
opened a possible channel of communication
with her uncle's family. The more she
tried to peer into the chances of her future life,
the stronger grew her desire to attempt the
stage as a profession. The daily pressure of
her present existence was squeezing all the
buoyancy out of her heart, and, she feared,
would crush her bodily health. The atmosphere
of Mrs. Hatchett's house was slow poison to
her.

She had a great enjoyment in dramatic
expression. She had a large share of that
idiosyncrasy which delights in the portrayal
of strong emotion, under the sheltering mask
of an assumed individuality. Of her own
feelings Mabel was reticent. But she thought
she could abandon herself freely in the
utterance of Imogen's wifely love, Cordelia's
sorrows, or the witty witcheries of Beatrice.
She knew something of the seamy side of a
player's life, and was not dazzled by that seductive
brilliancy of the footlights which has
enchanted so many young eyes. She was
devotedly fond of her little brother, and
ambitious to obtain for him the education of a
gentleman. This motive strengthened her resolution.
She would lie awake for hours, painfully
considering how it would be possible for her
to make a beginning as an actress. It was
naturally towards her Aunt Mary that her main
hopes and expectations turned. But, in her
ignorance of Mrs. Walton's present place of
abode, she cast about in her mind to find some
practical and immediate object on which to
expend her energy. She had the very useful
habit of doing, first, the duty that lay nearest
to her.

All Mrs. Hatchett's pupils went home for
the Christmas holidays with the exception of
two little South Americans from Rio Janeiro,
who remained at the school. These children
were entrusted almost entirely to Mabel's
care.

Among the two or three books she had
put into her trunk on leaving home, was a
pocket Shakespeare:—a little old well-worn
edition, in terribly small print, that had
belonged to her father. During the holidays,
when all the sleeping-rooms were not needed for
the children, Mabel enjoyed the luxury of a
chamber to herself. On many and many a cold
winter's night did the lonely girl sit on the side
of her little bed, wrapped in a shawl, and straining
her eyes over her Shakespeare, by the
dim light of a miserable candle. She was
studying the principal female characters in
Shakespeare's plays.

Poor Mabel! As she committed to memory,
line after line of that noble music whose
cadence has so special a charm for the ear,
and as she declaimed aloud whole speeches
of Portia, Imogen, Cordelia, Rosalind, Juliet,
the sordid cares, the monotonous drudgery,
the uncongenial associations of her life, were
all forgotten. The mean room, with its bare
scanty furniture, faded away, and Mabel roamed,
in doublet and hose, through the sun-flecked
forest of Arden, seeing the mottled deer glance
by under the great oaks, and hearing the
stream that "brawled along the wood" babble
a murmurous accompaniment to the deep voice
of the melancholy Jaques, or Touchstone's dry
satiric laughter. Or, she walked through the
quaint mazes of a garden in Messina, and sitting
hidden in the

                                         pleached bower,
            Where honeysuckles ripened by the sun,
            Forbid the sun to enter,

listened with a "fire in her ears" to Ursula and
Hero discoursing of the Signior Benedick and
her disdainful self.

Or, she paced the stately halls of Belmont; or,
stood before the choleric old King, to speak
Cordelia's simple truths and lose her dower.
Or, she leaned forth from a balcony amidst the
soft beauty of a southern summer night, and
drank in the passionate vows of Romeo, as
he stood with upturned face whereon the
moonlight shone, beneath her window.

O youth, O poetry, O mighty wizards, ruling
boundless realms of fancy and of beauty, how
at the touch of your enchanted wands this
"muddy vesture of decay" grows clear and
light, and we hear all the quiring of the
spheres!

She would wake to the realities around her
at the closing of her book, as one wakes from
a dream. And having no one to whom to
confide her hopes and plans, or from whom she
could look for sympathy with her wonder at,
and admiration of, the genius whose creations
were, for her mind, living, breathing, immortal
realities, she grew to look forward to the solitary