features.

"And they are all gone?" she exclaimed.

"I found no one in the house who did not belong there."

"Oh! then we can breathe easily again."

I glanced hastily up and down the room.

"There is no one here," said she.

And still I hesitated. At length, in an awkward way enough, I turned
towards her and said:

"I do not wish either to offend or alarm you, but I must say that I
consider it your duty to return to your own home to-night."

"Why?" she stammered. "Is there any particular reason for my doing so?
Have you not perceived the impossibility of my remaining in the same
house with Eleanore?"

"Miss Leavenworth, I cannot recognize any so-called impossibility of
this nature. Eleanore is your cousin; has been brought up to regard you
as a sister; it is not worthy of you to desert her at the time of her
necessity. You will see this as I do, if you will allow yourself a
moment's dispassionate thought."

"Dispassionate thought is hardly possible under the circumstances," she
returned, with a smile of bitter irony.

But before I could reply to this, she softened, and asked if I was very
anxious to have her return; and when I replied, "More than I can say,"
she trembled and looked for a moment as if she were half inclined to
yield; but suddenly broke into tears, crying it was impossible, and that
I was cruel to ask it.

I drew back, baffled and sore. "Pardon me," said I, "I have indeed
transgressed the bounds allotted to me. I will not do so again; you have
doubtless many friends; let some of them advise you."

She turned upon me all fire. "The friends you speak of are flatterers.
You alone have the courage to command me to do what is right."

"Excuse me, I do not command; I only entreat."

She made no reply, but began pacing the room, her eyes fixed, her hands
working convulsively. "You little know what you ask," said she. "I feel
as though the very atmosphere of that house would destroy me; but--why
cannot Eleanore come here?" she impulsively inquired. "I know Mrs.
Gilbert will be quite willing, and I could keep my room, and we need not
meet."

"You forget that there is another call at home, besides the one I have
already mentioned. To-morrow afternoon your uncle is to be buried."

"O yes; poor, poor uncle!"

"You are the head of the household," I now ventured, "and the proper
one to attend to the final offices towards one who has done so much for
you."

There was something strange in the lo