ood enough for Duke--but--I love him! That's all. Bless thee,
Brian! thee is Pa's own boy all over!"

And Harrie kissed the little fellow passionately, with something more
even than a mother's love.--Agatha could have lifted up her arms and
shrieked with misery.

It was a strange long day at Kingcombe Holm; many things to be arranged,
many questions to be parried, many prying eyes to be avoided. But
the general conclusion seemed to be, that this sudden movement was a
mysterious whim of Nathanael--and Nathanael was supposed by one-half of
his family to be mightily prone to mysteries and whims.

At length, when the day was nigh spent, and Agatha had dressed for the
last of those formal dinners to which she had never been able quite to
reconcile herself, she took refuge in Elizabeth's room. Thither she
had of late absented herself; there was something so formidable in the
keenness of Elizabeth's silent eyes. Hesitating before the door, she
remembered when she had last quitted it. It required all her bravery to
cross the threshold once more.

"Come in. I hear your foot, Agatha." There was no stepping back now.

The same atmosphere of peace and sanctity pervading the pretty room; the
same lights dancing through the painted window on the silk coverlet; the
same face, which had all the colourless reality of death, without any
of its ghastliness--a smiling repose, such as is seen only at the
beginning and end of life's tumult--in the cradle and in the coffin. Its
effect upon Agatha was instantaneous. Her trembling ceased; she stepped
lightly, as one does in entering a holy place.

"Elizabeth!" It seemed a beautiful name, a saint's name, and as such
came quite naturally, though she had rarely before been so familiar with
any one of her new sisters. She kneeled down and kissed Elizabeth.

"That is right. You are good to come. And where have you been, my little
sister?--I have not seen you for three days."

"Is it so long?"

"Yes--though it may seem longer to me here. You remember you came and
told me a long story about a Cornish miner. How did the tale end? What,
no answer?"

None. She tried to hide herself--crush herself into the very floor where
she sat, out of reach of Elizabeth's eyes.

"Ah, well, dear! I shall not ask."

"Perhaps my husband will tell you some day. Talk to me of something
else, Elizabeth. And oh! however I may look and speak, don't notice me.
Let me feel that I need not make pretences with you."