d of them, in the dark. While
he used them with perfect freedom, and cared comparatively little about
their covers, he handled them with a delicacy that looked almost like
respect. He had seen ladies handle books, he said, laughing, to
Wingfold, in a fashion that would have made him afraid to trust them
with a child. It was a year after Juliet left the house before he got
them by degrees muddled into order again; for it was only as he used
them that he would alter their places, putting each, when he had done
with it for the moment, as near where it had been before as he could;
thus, in time, out of a neat chaos, restoring a useful work-a-day world.

Dorothy's thoughts were in the meantime much occupied for Juliet. Now
that she was so sadly free, she could do more for her. She must occupy
her old quarters as soon as possible after the workmen had finished. She
thought at first of giving out that a friend in poor health was coming
to visit her, but she soon saw that would either involve lying or lead
to suspicion, and perhaps discovery, and resolved to keep her presence
in the house concealed from the outer world as before. But what was she
to do with respect to Lisbeth? Could she trust her with the secret? She
certainly could not trust Amanda. She would ask Helen to take the latter
for a while, and do her best to secure the silence of the former.

She so represented the matter to Lisbeth as to rouse her heart in regard
to it even more than her wonder. But her injunctions to secrecy were so
earnest, that the old woman was offended. She was no slip of a girl, she
said, who did not know how to hold her tongue. She had had secrets to
keep before now, she said; and in proof of her perfect trustworthiness,
was proceeding to tell some of them, when she read her folly in
Dorothy's fixed regard, and ceased.

"Lisbeth," said her mistress, "you have been a friend for sixteen years,
and I love you; but if I find that you have given the smallest hint even
that there is a secret in the house, I solemnly vow you shall not be
another night in it yourself, and I shall ever after think of you as a
wretched creature who periled the life of a poor, unhappy lady rather
than take the trouble to rule her own tongue."

Lisbeth trembled, and did hold her tongue, in spite of the temptation to
feel herself for just one instant the most important person in Glaston.

As the time went on, Juliet became more fretful, and more confiding.
She was ne