"What is it you want so
particularly to know?"

"Tell us how you felt when you first saw the Duchess. As for me, I am
sure I should have been so frightened that I should not have dared to
look at so great a lady, and I am sure that I never should have spoken
to her."

"Oh," said Grace, "the truth is, that the sight of the Duchess did make
me feel as I had never felt before in my life, and I was indeed afraid
to lift my eyes from the ground. But when she spoke to me, it was
different. She begged me not to feel timid, and really, I felt that
she was intending to be kind, and that there was absolutely nothing to
be frightened about. She has such a kind way of speaking, that nobody
could long feel timid in her presence. I assure you, Elizabeth, that
before the interview was ended, instead of feeling alarmed at the
Duchess, I quite loved her. I could not help it, for she was so very
kind and courteous, that I was sorry when the time had gone."

She then gave them every particular that she could recall, of that
which happened from the time when they set their feet inside the gate,
until they came back again; and as Grace became animated with her
theme, all eyes sparkled with pleasure, and no one was uninterested.

"Do you not think that the lighthouse is a poor cheerless place after
all the grandeur that you saw at the castle, Grace."

"No, indeed," said Grace; "it is the dearest and sweetest spot on all
the earth to me, because it is home. There is no place like home.
Castles are good to see, but a home is the place to dwell in."

"Tell us about the great people who have been here to see you, Grace.
The place never had half so many visitors before, I suppose."

"I should think not," said Mr. Darling; "not even when St. Cuthbert
resided on the island, and deputations waited upon him. Of one thing
we may be sure, that so many artists never came before."

"No, indeed," said Grace. "I have had my own picture taken until I am
almost tired of sitting for it. But the paintings are wonderfully
good."

"They are indeed. Both father and Grace have been reproduced to the
life; and looking on their portraits, we can almost fancy that we are
looking on their real faces."

"I have seen in Newcastle," said Robert, "a grand picture of the wreck
by Carmichael, and it is most wonderful. As I looked at it, it quite
seemed to me that I must be on the rocks themselves, instead of in the
town of Newcastle, for it was all