ushing on his hat and false whiskers. It was
Joyce.

"Do you think you shall find your way down alone, madame?"

"Yes, I can do that," she answered. Find her way in that house!

Lady Isabel slowly took her things off. What was the use of
lingering--she _must_ meet their eyes, sooner or later. Though, in
truth, there was little, if any, fear of her detection, so effectually
was she disguised by nature's altering hand, or by art's. It was with
the utmost difficulty she kept tranquil. Had the tears once burst
forth, they would have gone on to hysterics, without the possibility of
control. The coming home again to East Lynne! Oh, it was indeed a time
of agitation, terrible, painful agitation, and none can wonder at it.
Shall I tell you what she did? Yes, I will at the expense of ridicule.
She knelt down by the bed and prayed for courage to go through the task
she had undertaken; prayed for self-control--even she, the sinful, who
had quitted that house under circumstances notorious. But I am not sure
that this mode of return to it was an expedition precisely calculated to
call down a blessing.

There was no excuse for lingering longer, and she descended, the
waxlight in her hand. Everything was ready in the gray parlor--the
tea-tray on the table, the small urn hissing away, the tea-caddy in
proximity to it. A silver rack of dry toast, butter, and a hot muffin
covered with a small silver cover. The things were to her sight as old
faces--the rack, the small cover, the butter-dish, the tea-service--she
remembered them all; not the urn--a copper one--she had no recollection
of that. It had possibly been bought for the use of the governess, when
a governess came into use at East Lynne. Could she have given herself
leisure to reflect on the matter, she might have told, by the signs
observable in the short period she had been in the house, that
governesses of East Lynne were regarded as gentlewomen--treated well and
liberally. Yes; for East Lynne owned Mr. Carlyle for its master.

She made the tea, and sat down with what appetite she might, her brain,
her thoughts, all in a chaos together. She wondered whether Mr. and Mrs.
Carlyle were at dinner--she wondered in what part of the house were the
children. She heard bells ring now and then; she heard servants cross
and recross the hall. Her meal over, she rang her own.

A neat-looking, good-tempered maid answered it, Hannah, who, as Joyce
had informed her, waited upon the gray p