Updated 12/19/04: Christmas ball pictures.

“SOMETHING must be done; I can bear this no longer.”

I remember just the spot where, as I spoke these words, I paused between the table and the rug in my small parlor— small, but pleasant and tasteful, as I had often congratulated myself, looking at the pretty lace curtains and the Brussels carpet, its dark moss-green ground flushed and warm with tropical roses.

I, Louise Hastings, had carried for a whole week a slow, steady heartache. Sometimes this aching had suddenly sprang into a quick, fierce life, and pain which seemed as though it would smother my breath and drive my reason into a great whirl of madness. But that was when I looked off to the future, and remembered the past; and my will was stubborn and my pride was strong; and I held down memory and imagination with all the might of both, for I dreaded every recurrence of that fierce, choking pain as I would have dreaded tongues of fire leaping suddenly along my shrinking nerves. So I had borne myself before my husband and any one with whom I chanced to be thrown steadily enough, perhaps with a little added dignity; but that no one would be likely to observe who had not the key to it.

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Fashions for May

Click on the Library and then Latest Fashions for more pictures.

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1860's Hairstyles

1860's hairstyle instructions with pictures and step-by-step instructions