ed, had Mrs. Strong then. Several weeks elapsed
before I saw the least change in her. It came on slowly, like a cloud
when there is no wind. At first, she seemed to wonder at the gentle
compassion with which the Doctor spoke to her, and at his wish that she
should have her mother with her, to relieve the dull monotony of her
life. Often, when we were at work, and she was sitting by, I would see
her pausing and looking at him with that memorable face. Afterwards, I
sometimes observed her rise, with her eyes full of tears, and go out
of the room. Gradually, an unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty, and
deepened every day. Mrs. Markleham was a regular inmate of the cottage
then; but she talked and talked, and saw nothing.

As this change stole on Annie, once like sunshine in the Doctor's house,
the Doctor became older in appearance, and more grave; but the sweetness
of his temper, the placid kindness of his manner, and his benevolent
solicitude for her, if they were capable of any increase, were
increased. I saw him once, early on the morning of her birthday, when
she came to sit in the window while we were at work (which she had
always done, but now began to do with a timid and uncertain air that I
thought very touching), take her forehead between his hands, kiss it,
and go hurriedly away, too much moved to remain. I saw her stand where
he had left her, like a statue; and then bend down her head, and clasp
her hands, and weep, I cannot say how sorrowfully.

Sometimes, after that, I fancied that she tried to speak even to me,
in intervals when we were left alone. But she never uttered a word. The
Doctor always had some new project for her participating in amusements
away from home, with her mother; and Mrs. Markleham, who was very fond
of amusements, and very easily dissatisfied with anything else, entered
into them with great good-will, and was loud in her commendations. But
Annie, in a spiritless unhappy way, only went whither she was led, and
seemed to have no care for anything.

I did not know what to think. Neither did my aunt; who must have walked,
at various times, a hundred miles in her uncertainty. What was strangest
of all was, that the only real relief which seemed to make its way into
the secret region of this domestic unhappiness, made its way there in
the person of Mr. Dick.

What his thoughts were on the subject, or what his observation was, I am
as unable to explain, as I dare say he would have been to ass