of inward
light, kindled in them by some foregoing experience, rested kindly, but
only half consciously, on her younger sister, as Agnes softly nodded and
smiled to her. Evidently she was a good deal older than the other
two--she looked about six-and-twenty, a young and vigorous woman in the
prime of health and strength. The lines of the form were rather thin and
spare, but they were softened by the loose bodice and long full skirt of
her dress, and by the folds of a large white muslin handkerchief which
was crossed over her breast. The face, sheltered by the plain shady hat,
was also a little spoilt from the point of view of beauty by the
sharpness of the lines about the chin and mouth, and by a slight
prominence of the cheekbones, but the eyes, of a dark bluish gray, were
fine, the nose delicately cut, the brow smooth and beautiful, while the
complexion had caught the freshness and purity of Westmoreland air and
Westmoreland streams. About face and figure there was a delicate austere
charm, something which harmonised with the bare stretches and lonely
crags of the fells, something which seemed to make her a true daughter
of the mountains, partaker at once of their gentleness and their
severity. _She_ was in her place here, beside the homely Westmoreland
house and under the shelter of the fells. When you first saw the other
sisters you wondered what strange chance had brought them into that
remote sparely-peopled valley; they were plainly exiles, and conscious
exiles, from the movement and exhilarations of a fuller social life. But
Catherine impressed you as only a refined variety of the local type; you
could have found many like her, in a sense, among the sweet-faced
serious women of the neighbouring farms.

Now, as she and Rose stood together, her hand still resting lightly on
the other's shoulder, a question from Agnes banished the faint smile on
her lips, and left only the look of inward illumination, the expression
of one who had just passed, as it were, through a strenuous and heroic
moment of life, and was still living in the exaltation of memory.

'So the poor fellow is worse?'

'Yes. Doctor Baker, whom they have got to-day, says the spine is
hopelessly injured. He may live on paralysed for a few months or longer,
but there is no hope of cure.'

Both girls uttered a shocked exclamation. 'That fine strong young man!'
said Rose under her breath. 'Does he know?'

'Yes; when I got there the doctor had just go