felt her cheeks tingle nervously, but still she put her arm
in her husband's, and said, "I should much like to go."

Mary sent for lights, and prepared to accompany them herself, the other
two moving away into the drawing-room.

Through the same sort of old-fashioned passages, but, as it seemed, to
quite a different part of the house, Agatha went with her husband and
his sister. The strangeness and gloom of the place, the doubt as to what
sort of person she was going to see--for all she had heard was that from
some great physical suffering Elizabeth never quitted her room--made
the young girl feel timid, even afraid. Her hand trembled so that her
husband perceived it.

"Nay, you need not mind," he whispered. "You will see nothing to pain
you. We all dearly love her, and I do believe she is very happy--poor
Elizabeth!"

As he spoke Mary opened a door, and they passed from the dark staircase
into a large, well-lighted, pleasant room--made scrupulously pleasant,
Agatha thought. It was filled with all sorts of pretty things,
engravings, statuettes, vases, flowers, books, a piano; even the paper
on the walls and the hangings at the window were of most delicate
and careful choice. No rich drawing-room could show more taste in its
arrangements, or have a more soothing effect on a mind to which the
sense of aesthetic fitness is its native element.

At first, Agatha thought the room was empty, until, lying on a
sofa--though so muffled in draperies as nearly to disguise all form--she
saw what seemed at first the figure of a child. But coming nearer, the
face was no child's face. It was that of a woman, already arrived at
middle age. Many wrinkles seamed it; and the hair surrounding it in
soft, close bands, was quite grey. The only thing notable about the
countenance was a remarkable serenity, which in youth might have
conveyed that painful impression of premature age often seen in similar
cases, but which now in age made it look young. It was as if time
and worldly sorrow had alike forgotten this sad victim of Nature's
unkindness--had passed by and left her to keep something of the child's
paradise about her still.

This face, and the small, thin, infantile-looking hands, crossed on the
silk coverlet, were all that was visible. Agatha wondered she had so
shrunk from the simple mystery now revealed.

Nathanael led her to the sofa, and placed her where Elizabeth could see
her easily without turning round.

"Here is my wif