erhaps it was as much agony as passion!'

He shrugged his shoulders as he held out his hand for her operations,
then hastily thanking her and wishing her good-bye, rushed off again, as
the astonished Miss Wells appeared on the stairs. Honor shrank from
telling her what wounds had been received, she thought the gentle lady
would never get over such a proceeding, and, in fact, she herself felt
somewhat as if she had undertaken the charge of a little wild cat, and
quite uncertain what the young lady might do next. On entering the
breakfast-room, they found her sunk down all in a heap, where her uncle
had set her down, her elbows on a low footstool, and her head leaning on
them, the eyes still gazing askance from under the brows, but all the
energy and life gone from the little dejected figure.

'Poor child! Dear little thing--won't you come to me?' She stirred not.

Miss Wells advanced, but the child's only motion was to shake her frock
at her, as if to keep her off; Honora, really afraid of the consequences
of touching her, whispered that they would leave her to herself a little.
The silver kettle came in, and tea was made.

'Lucilla, my dear, the servants are coming in to prayers.'

She did not offer to move, and still Honora let her alone, and she
remained in the same attitude while the psalm was read, but afterwards
there was a little approximation to kneeling in her position.

'Lucilla, dear child, you had better come to breakfast--' Only another
defying glance.

Miss Wells, with what Honor thought defective judgment, made pointed
commendations of the tea, the butter and honey, but they had no effect;
Honora, though her heart ached for the wrench the poor child had
undergone, thought it best to affect indifference, gave a hint of the
kind, and scrupulously avoided looking round at her, till breakfast was
finished. When she did so, she no longer met the wary defiant gleam of
the blue eyes, they were fast shut, the head had sunk on the arms, and
the long breathings of sleep heaved the little frame. 'Poor little
dear!' as Miss Wells might well exclaim, she had kept herself wakeful the
whole night that her father might not go without her knowledge. And how
pretty she looked in that little black frock, so ill and hastily put on,
one round white shoulder quite out of it, and the long flaxen locks
showing their silky fineness as they hung dispersed and tangled, the
pinky flush of sleep upon the little face pill