sound but the barking of
a distant farm-dog, such a long way off, that it reached the ear more
like an echo than a sound, and the crowing of a cock, not much more
near.

Suddenly, her door opened, and a figure entered, bearing a small
night-lamp. Emily started, and gazed. She was not much given to fear,
and she uttered not a sound; for which command over herself she was very
thankful, when, in the tall, graceful form before her, she recognized
Mrs. Hazleton. She was dressed merely as she had risen from her bed: her
rich black hair bound up under her snowy cap, her long night-gown
trailing on the ground, and her feet bare. Yet she looked perhaps more
beautiful than in jewels and ermine. Her eyes were not fixed and
motionless, though there was a certain sort of deadness in them. Neither
were her movements stiff and mechanical, as we often see in the
representations of somnambulism on the stage. On the contrary, they were
free and graceful. She looked neither like Mrs. Siddons nor any other
who ever acted what she really was. Those who have seen the state know
better. She was walking in her sleep, however: that strange act of a
life apart from waking life--that mystery of mysteries, when the soul
seems severed from all things on earth but the body which it
inhabits--when the mind sleeps, but the spirit wakes--when the animal
and the spiritual live together, yet the intellectual lies dead for the
time.

Emily comprehended her condition at once, and waited and watched, having
heard that it is dangerous to wake suddenly a person in such a state.
Mrs. Hazleton walked on past her bed towards a door at the other side of
the room, but stopped opposite the toilet-table, took up a ribbon that
was lying on it, and held it in her hand for a moment.

"I hate him!" she said aloud; "but strangle him--oh, no! That would not
do. It would leave a blue mark. I hate him, and her too! They can't help
it--they must fall into the trap."

Emily rose quietly from her bed, and advancing with a soft step, took
Mrs. Hazleton's hand gently. She made no resistance, only gazing at her
with a look not utterly devoid of meaning. "A strange world!" she said,
"where people must live with those they hate!" and suffered Emily to
lead her towards the door. She showed some reluctance to pass it,
however, and turned slowly towards the other door. Her beautiful young
guide led her thither, and opened it; then went on through the
neighboring room, which was