im.
Mrs. Crosby's head was turned.

And now, I ask you, knowing as you do our national notions, was it not
enough to turn it? You will not, then, be surprised to hear that when,
some days subsequent to the feast, the Count Otto von Stalkenberg laid
his proposals at Helena's feet, they were not rejected.

Helena Crosby rushed into her governess's room.

"Madam! Madam! Only think. I am going to be married!"

Madam lifted her pale, sad face--a very sad and pale face was hers.

"Indeed!" she gently uttered.

"And my studies are to be over from to-day, Mamma says so."

"You are over young to marry, Helena."

"Now don't you bring up that, madam. It is just what papa is harping
upon," returned Miss Helena.

"It is to Count Otto?" And it may be remarked that the governess's
English was perfect, although the young lady addressed her as "Madam."

"Count Otto, of course. As if I would marry anybody else!"

Look at the governess, reader, and see whether you know her. You will
say "No." But you do, for it is Lady Isabel Vane. But how strangely she
is altered! Yes, the railway accident did that for her, and what the
accident left undone, grief and remorse accomplished. She limps as she
walks, and slightly stoops, taken from her former height. A scar extends
from her chin above her mouth, completely changing the character of
the lower part of her face; some of her teeth are missing, so that she
speaks with a lisp, and the sober bands of her gray hair--it is nearly
silver--are confined under a large and close cap. She herself tries to
make the change greater, so that all chance of being recognized may be
at an end, and for that reason she wears disfiguring spectacles, and a
broad band of gray velvet, coming down low upon her forehead. Her dress,
too, is equally disfiguring. Never is she seen in one that fits her
person, but in those frightful "loose jackets," which must surely have
been invented by somebody envious of a pretty shape. As to her bonnet,
it would put to shame those masquerade things tilted on to the back of
the head, for it actually shaded her face; and she was never seen
out without a thick veil. She was pretty easy upon the score of being
recognized now; for Mrs. Ducie and her daughters had been sojourning at
Stalkenberg, and they did not know her in the least. Who could know her?
What resemblance was there between that gray, broken-down woman, with
her disfiguring marks, and the once loved Lady Isabel, with