Her own Way by Eglanton Thorne

IT was a cold, gloomy day towards the end of the year. Juliet, in the worst of her many possible humours, was lounging in an easy-chair by the fire, a yellow-backed novel in her hand. Her eyes looked dull and heavy; there was a flush on her cheeks that was not caused by the heat of the fire, and when she spoke her voice was very hoarse. She was suffering from a severe cold on her chest, which, much to her annoyance, had prevented her from taking her singing lesson as usual on the previous day.

Her mother, who sat with her knitting at the opposite side of the fireplace, glanced at her from time to time with an air of concern. She would have been much better in bed; but Juliet had absolutely refused to remain there.

"I do wish you would not look at me so, mother, every time I cough! " exclaimed Juliet, impatiently. "You need not think I am going to die just because I cough a little."

"My dear child, how you talk! " said Mrs. Tracy. "I only long to relieve your cough. Would you drink a little black currant tea if I made you some?"

"Oh, mother, don't worry me; you know how I hate all those decoctions. If only you would leave me alone."

And Juliet lay back wearily in her chair and took up her book again. It did not interest her particularly. Nothing interested her to-day. She was causing her mother a great deal of trouble; but she was far more troublesome to herself, and that not because her head ached, her chest was sore, and she felt ill all over. There was an inner discomfort that was far worse than her physical ailments. In her inaction, thoughts pressed upon her from which she would gladly have escaped. Her novel, exciting though the plot was, could not drive them away. Her own life-story was more absorbing to her at this time than any romance that human imagination could conceive. She found herself forced to review certain of her past actions, and to ponder their probable consequences.

Conscience had somewhat to say concerning these, and its remonstrances irritated her, though she would not own them to be well-founded. Then would come thoughts that were at once sweet and fear-inspiring' and visions of the future which sent the blood coursing more rapidly through her veins, and heightened the fever with which her whole frame was throbbing.

Her mother, watching her as she tossed from side to side of the big chair and breathed many a deep-drawn sigh, half divined that the restlessness was mental as well as physical. For several weeks, she had felt instinctively that her child was keeping something from her. It gave the mother's heart intense pain to think that Juliet was withdrawing her confidence, bus she would not attempt to force it. She waited, hoping and believing that Juliet would soon of her own accord confide to her whatever it was that troubled her.

"There are your sisters," said Mrs. Tracy, as the sound of the house door being opened by a latch-key reached her ears.

Juliet muttered something unintelligible. She had reasons of her own for not welcoming the return of Hannah and Salome, who had been taking afternoon tea with Mrs. Hayes at the rectory.

The next minute they entered the room; Salome rigidly neat in her deaconess-like dress, and Hannah well but soberly dressed, and looking very big, strong, and imposing in her warm mantle and velvet bonnet.

"Well, dears," said Mrs. Tracy, in her cheerful tones, "have you had a nice time?"

"I cannot say that it has been particularly pleasant," replied Hannah, in her distinct, deliberate utterance. "We are later than we thought we should be; but Mrs. Hayes asked us to stay a little while after the others had left. She had something to say to us."

It seemed to Juliet that Hannah looked at her as she spoke with peculiar significance in her glance. The immediate effect of the glance was to drive the girl into irritable speech.

"Why can't you shut the door after you when you come into a room, Salome? " she demanded. "There is a most frightful draught coming to me."

"You should have stayed in bed, if you feel every current of air so," said Hannah. "The room is already a great deal too warm to be healthy. Ah, I thought so," she added, as she consulted a small thermometer hanging against the wall, "seventy degrees! That is a great deal too high."

"I don't care whether it is seventy or eighty," muttered Juliet, "I mean to be warm. Oh, mother, don't fidget with that screen! " she exclaimed impatiently, as Mrs. Tracy tried to adjust the screen behind her chair so as to shelter her more effectually. "I do wish you would let me have a little peace."

"You are very ungrateful, Juliet," said Salome, as Mrs. Tracy moved quickly back to her place with a look of pain on her face; "mother has been doing nothing all day but wait upon you, and that is how you speak to her!"

Juliet hated herself for her impatient utterance as soon as it had passed her lips. But her sense that it was deserved did not make her less disposed to resent Salome's injudicious speech.

"It was your fault that mother rose to move the screen," she retorted, "for you left the door open. We were comfortable enough till you came in."