arked the earl,
releasing the cold hand. "Well, I can hardly believe the tale now."

He turned and quitted the room as he spoke. Mr. Carlyle looked
steadfastly at the dead face for a minute or two, his fingers touching
the forehead; but what his thoughts or feelings may have been, none can
tell. Then he replaced the sheet over her face, and followed the earl.

They descended in silence to the breakfast-room. Miss Carlyle was seated
at the table waiting for them. "Where _could_ all your eyes have been?"
exclaimed the earl to her, after a few sentences, referring to the event
just passed.

"Just where yours would have been," replied Miss Corny, with a touch of
her old temper. "You saw Madame Vine as well as we did."

"But not continuously. Only two or three times in all. And I do not
remember ever to have seen her without her bonnet and veil. That Carlyle
should not have recognized her is almost beyond belief."

"It _seems_ so, to speak of it," said Miss Corny; "but facts are facts.
She was young and gay, active, when she left here, upright as a dart,
her dark hair drawn from her open brow, and flowing on her neck, her
cheeks like crimson paint, her face altogether beautiful. Madame Vine
arrived here a pale, stooping woman, lame of one leg, _shorter_ than
Lady Isabel--and her figure stuffed out under those sacks of jackets.
Not a bit, scarcely, of her forehead to be seen, for gray velvet and
gray bands of hair; her head smothered under a close cap, large, blue,
double spectacles hiding the eyes and their sides, and the throat tied
up; the chin partially. The mouth was entirely altered in its character,
and that upward scar, always so conspicuous, made it almost ugly. Then
she had lost some of her front teeth, you know, and she lisped when she
spoke. Take her for all in all," summed up Miss Carlyle, "she looked no
more like Isabel who went away from here than I look like Adam. Just get
your dearest friend damaged and disguised as she was, my lord, and see
if you'd recognize him."

The observation came home to Lord Mount Severn. A gentleman whom he knew
well, had been so altered by a fearful accident, that little resemblance
could be traced to his former self. In fact, his own family could not
recognize him: and _he_ used an artificial disguise. It was a case in
point; and--reader--I assure you it was a true one.

"It was the _disguise_ that we ought to have suspected," quietly
observed Mr. Carlyle. "The likeness was