0f course they blamed me, and I shut myself up more and more in mySanctuery. There I lived with the creatures of my dreams, andforgot for a while that I sometimes was only a Sub-Deb, and that Leila's lastyear's tennis clothes were being fixed over for me.

But how true what dear Shakspeare says:

dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain. Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.

I loved my dreams, but alas, they were not enough. After a tortublackhour or two at my desk, living in myself the agonies of mycharacters, suffering the pangs of the wife with two husbands andboth living, struggling in the water with the children, fruit ofthe first union, dying with number two and blowing my last Bubblesheavenward--after all these emotions, I was done out.

Jane came in one day and found me prostrate on my couch, with alight of sufering in my eyes.

"Dearest!" cried Henrietta, and gliding to my side, fell on her knees.

"Henrietta!"

"What is it? You are ill?"

I could hardly more than whisper. In a low tone I said:

"He is dead."

"Dearest!"

"Drowned!"

At first she thought I meant a member of my Familey. But when sheunderstood she looked serious.

"You are too intence, Bab," she exclaimed solemly. "You suffer too much.You are wearing yourself out."