elf to
work with a basket of stockings on her knees, which she appeared to be
assorting assiduously.

There she sat, spectacles on nose, thimble on twisted finger, ivory-egg
in hand, in active preparation for that work, woman's _par excellence_,
that alone rivals Penelope's. Surely that assortment of yellow,
ill-mated, half-worn, and holey hose, was a treasure to her, that no
gold could have replaced, in our dreary solitude (none the less dreary
for being so luxurious). I envied her almost the power she seemed to
have to merge her mind in things like these; and saw, for the first time
in my life, what advantages might lie in being commonplace.

It was now nearly the end of July. My birthday occurred in the middle of
September. I thought I knew that, as soon as possible after my majority,
Mr. Bainrothe's conditions would be laid before me.

I could not, dared not, believe that my captivity would be lengthened
beyond that time. I resolved that I would condone the past, and go forth
penniless, if this were exacted in exchange for liberty at the end of a
month and a half from this time.

Six weeks to wait! Were they not, in the fullness of their power, to
crush and baffle me? Six weary years! For, during all this time, I felt
that the unexplained mystery that weighed upon my life would gather in
force and inflexibility. Death would have seemed to have set its seal
upon it, in the estimation of Captain Wentworth, as of all others. He
would never know that the sea, which swallowed up the Kosciusko, had
spared the woman he loved, nor receive the explanation that she alone
could give him, of the mystery he deplored.

Before I emerged from my prison, he might be gone to the antipodes, for
aught I knew, and a barrier of eternal silence and absence be interposed
between us. So worked my fate! These reflections continued to haunt and
oppress me, by night and day, and life itself seemed a bitter burden in
that interval of rebellious agony, and in that terrible seclusion, where
luxury itself became an additional engine of torture.

Days passed, alternately of leaden apathy and bitter gloom, varied by
irrepressible paroxysms of despair. Whenever I found myself alone, even
for a few moments, I paced my room and wept aloud, or prayed
passionately. There were times when I felt that my Creator heard and
pitied me; others when I persuaded myself his ear was closed inexorably
against me.

I suffered fearfully--this could not last. T