Miss Barlow, I envy you," said Hetty in a tone which startled even
herself. Again Rachel bent on her the same clairvoyant gaze which had so
embarrassed her before. Hetty shrank from it still more than at first,
and left the room, saying to her husband: "I will wait for you outside."

As they drove away, Hetty said:

"Eben, what is it in her look which makes me so uneasy? I don't like to
have her look at me."

"Now that is strange," replied the doctor. "After you had left the room,
the child said to me: 'What is the matter with your wife? She is not
well,' and I laughed at the idea, and told her I never knew any woman
half so well or strong. Rachel is a sort of clairvoyant, as persons in
her condition are so apt to be; but she made a wrong guess this time,
didn't she?"

Hetty did not answer; and the doctor turning towards her saw that her
eyes were fixed on the sky with a dreamy expression.

"Why, Hetty!" he exclaimed. "Why do you look so? You are perfectly well,
are you not, dear?"

"Oh, yes! oh, yes!" Hetty answered, quickly rousing herself. "I am
perfectly well; and always have been, ever since I can remember."

After this, Hetty went no more with her husband to see Rachel. When he
asked her, she said: "No, Eben: I am going to see her alone. I will not
go with you again. She makes me uncomfortable. If she makes me feel so,
when I am alone with her, I shall not go at all. I don't like
clairvoyants."

"Why, what a queer notion that is for you, wife!" laughed the doctor,
and thought no more of it.

Hetty's first interview with Rachel was a constrained one. Nothing in
Hetty's life had prepared her for intercourse with so finely organized a
creature: she felt afraid to speak, lest she should wound her; her own
habits of thought and subjects of interest seemed too earthy to be
mentioned in this presence; she was vaguely conscious that all Rachel's
being was set to finer issues than her own. She found in this an
unspeakable attraction; and yet it also withheld her at every point and
made her dumb. In spite of these conflicting emotions, she wanted to
love Rachel, to help her, to be near her; and she went again and again,
until the constraint wore off, and a very genuine affection grew up
between them. Never, after the first day, had she felt any peculiar
embarrassment under Rachel's gaze, and her memory of it had nearly died
away, when one day, late in the autumn, it was suddenly revived with
added intensity. It w