his face; coat and hat and all,
sprinkled over with snow.

As if he heard the rustle of the curtain, he turned toward the bed, and
with an awful ejaculation she cried, ''Tis you, Sir!'

'Don't stir, and you'll meet no harm,' he said, and over he posts to the
bedside, and he laid his cold hand on her wrist, and told her again to
be quiet, and for her life to tell no one what she had seen, and with
that she supposed she swooned away; for the next thing she remembered
was listening in mortal fear, the room being all dark, and she heard a
sound at the press again, and then steps crossing the floor, and she
gave herself up for lost; but he did not come to the bedside any more,
and the tread passed out at the door, and so, as she thought, went down
stairs.

In the morning the press was locked and the door shut, and the hall-door
and back-door locked, and the keys on the hall-table, where they had
left them the night before.

You may be sure these two ladies were thankful to behold the gray light,
and hear the cheerful sounds of returning day; and it would be no easy
matter to describe which of the two looked most pallid, scared, and
jaded that morning, as they drank a hysterical dish of tea together in
the kitchen, close up to the window, and with the door shut,
discoursing, and crying, and praying over their tea-pot in miserable
companionship.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

HOW AN EVENING PASSES AT THE ELMS, AND DR. TOOLE MAKES A LITTLE
EXCURSION; AND TWO CHOICE SPIRITS DISCOURSE, AND HEBE TRIPS IN WITH THE
NECTAR.

Up at the Elms, little Lily that night was sitting in the snug,
old-fashioned room, with the good old rector. She was no better; still
in doctors' hands and weak, but always happy with him, and he more than
ever gentle and tender with her; for though he never would give place to
despondency, and was naturally of a trusting, cheery spirit, he could
not but remember his young wife, lost so early; and once or twice there
was a look--an outline--a light--something, in little Lily's fair,
girlish face, that, with a strange momentary agony, brought back the
remembrance of her mother's stricken beauty, and plaintive smile. But
then his darling's gay talk and pleasant ways would reassure him, and
she smiled away the momentary shadow.

And he would tell her all sorts of wonders, old-world gaieties, long
before she was born; and how finely the great Mr. Handel played upon the
harpsichord in the Music Hall, and how hi