All day long, I wander with restless aimlessness about the house, my big house--so empty, so orderly in its stateliness--so frightfully silent! Ah! the doll's house whose whole front came out at once was a better companion--much more friendly, and not half so oppressive.

In almost every room, I cry profusely--disagreeable tears of shame and remorse and grief--only, O friends! I will tell you _now_, what I would not tell myself then, that the grief, though true, was not so great as either of the other feelings.

I lunch in the great dining-room, with tall full-length Tempests eying me with constant placidity from the walls; with the butler and footman still trying respectfully to ignore my swelled nose and bunged-up eyes.
As evening draws on--evening that is to bring some voices, some sound of steps to me and my great dumb house--I revive a little.

If it were Bobby that were coming, my mind would be weighted by the thought of the repression his spirits would need, but Algy's mirth is several shades less violent, and Barbara is never jarringly joyful.

So I change my dress, bathe my face, make my maid retwist my hair, and prepare to be chastenedly and moderately glad to see them.
At least there will be some one to occupy two more of these numberless chairs; two more for the stolid family portraits to eye; two voices, nay _three_, for _I_ shall speak then, to drown the sounding silence.
It is time they should be here.