us--and yet the same unacknowledged sense of
embarrassment made us shrink alike from meeting one another alone. She
waited on the lawn, and I waited in the breakfast-room, till Mrs. Vesey
or Miss Halcombe came in. How quickly I should have joined her: how
readily we should have shaken hands, and glided into our customary
talk, only a fortnight ago.

In a few minutes Miss Halcombe entered. She had a preoccupied look,
and she made her apologies for being late rather absently.

"I have been detained," she said, "by a consultation with Mr. Fairlie
on a domestic matter which he wished to speak to me about."

Miss Fairlie came in from the garden, and the usual morning greeting
passed between us. Her hand struck colder to mine than ever. She did
not look at me, and she was very pale. Even Mrs. Vesey noticed it when
she entered the room a moment after.

"I suppose it is the change in the wind," said the old lady. "The
winter is coming--ah, my love, the winter is coming soon!"

In her heart and in mine it had come already!

Our morning meal--once so full of pleasant good-humoured discussion of
the plans for the day--was short and silent. Miss Fairlie seemed to
feel the oppression of the long pauses in the conversation, and looked
appealingly to her sister to fill them up. Miss Halcombe, after once
or twice hesitating and checking herself, in a most uncharacteristic
manner, spoke at last.

"I have seen your uncle this morning, Laura," she said. "He thinks the
purple room is the one that ought to be got ready, and he confirms what
I told you. Monday is the day--not Tuesday."

While these words were being spoken Miss Fairlie looked down at the
table beneath her. Her fingers moved nervously among the crumbs that
were scattered on the cloth. The paleness on her cheeks spread to her
lips, and the lips themselves trembled visibly. I was not the only
person present who noticed this. Miss Halcombe saw it, too, and at once
set us the example of rising from table.

Mrs. Vesey and Miss Fairlie left the room together. The kind sorrowful
blue eyes looked at me, for a moment, with the prescient sadness of a
coming and a long farewell. I felt the answering pang in my own
heart--the pang that told me I must lose her soon, and love her the
more unchangeably for the loss.

I turned towards the garden when the door had closed on her. Miss
Halcombe was standing with her hat in her hand, and her shawl over her
arm, by the