Edith had not like Grace, looked into the large closet adjoining the Den, and she did not know what Nina meant, but at a venture she replied,
"No, darling. You'll be so good that they will not wish to put you there."
"I CAN'T," returned Nina, with the manner of one who distrusted herself. "I try, because it will please Arthur, but I must sing and dance and pull my hair when my head feels so big and heavy, and once, Miggie, when it was big as the house, and I pulled my hair till they shaved it off, I tore my clothes in pieces and threw them into the fire. Then, when Arthur came—Dr. Griswold sent for him, you see—I buried my fingers in HIS hair, so," and she was about to clutch her own golden locks when Edith shudderingly caught her hands and held them tightly lest they should harm the tresses she thought so beautiful.
"Arthur cried," continued Nina—"cried so hard that my brain grew cool at once. It's dreadful to see a man cry, Miggie—a great, strong man like Arthur. Poor Arthur, didn't you cry and call me your lost Nina?"
A suppressed moan was Arthur's answer, and Nina, when she heard it, slid from Edith's arms and crossing over to where she sat, climbed into his lap with all the freedom of a little child, and winding her arms about his neck, said to him softly,
"Don't be so sorry, Arthur, Nina'll be good. Nina is good now.
He's crying again. Make him stop, wont you? It hurts Nina so.
There, poor boy," and the little waxen hands wiped away the tears
falling so fast over Arthur's face.
Holding one upon the end of her finger and watching it until it dropped upon the carpet, she said with a smile, "Look, Miggie, MEN'S tears are bigger than girls."
Oh, how Edith's heart ached for the strange couple opposite her— the strong man and the crazy young girl who clung to him as confidingly, as if his bosom were her rightful resting place. She pitied them both, but her sympathies were enlisted for Arthur, and coming to his side she laid her hand upon the damp brown locks, which Nina once had torn in her insane fury, and in a voice which spoke volumes of sympathy, whispered, "I am sorry for you."
This was too much for Arthur, and he sobbed aloud, while Edith, forgetting all proprieties in her grief for him, bowed her face upon his head, and he could feel her hot tears dropping on his hair.
For a moment Nina looked from one to the other in silence, then standing upon her feet and bending over both, she said,