ked at her with a certain growing
interest she had never felt before. It was the first time for some years
that she had had such a chance, partly because Miss Cynthia had often
been away for long periods,--partly because she herself had been busy
professionally. There was no occasion for her services, of course, in
the family at The Poplars; and she was always following round from place
to place after that everlasting migratory six-weeks or less old baby.

There was not a more knowing pair of eyes, in their way, in a circle of
fifty miles, than those kindly tranquil orbs that Nurse Byloe fixed
on Cynthia Badlam. The silver threads in the side fold of hair, the
delicate lines at the corner of the eye, the slight drawing down at
the angle of the mouth,--almost imperceptible, but the nurse dwelt upon
it,--a certain moulding of the features as of an artist's clay model
worked by delicate touches with the fingers, showing that time or pain
or grief had had a hand in shaping them, the contours, the adjustment of
every fold of the dress, the attitude, the very way of breathing, were
all passed through the searching inspection of the ancient expert,
trained to know all the changes wrought by time and circumstance. It
took not so long as it takes to describe it, but it was an analysis of
imponderables, equal to any of Bunsen's with the spectroscope.

Miss Badlam removed her handkerchief and looked in a furtive,
questioning way, in her turn, upon the nurse.

"It's dreadful close here,--I'm 'most smothered," Nurse Byloe said; and,
putting her hand to her throat, unclasped the catch of the necklace of
gold beads she had worn since she was a baby,--a bead having been added
from time to time as she thickened. It lay in a deep groove of her large
neck, and had not troubled her in breathing before, since the day when
her husband was run over by an ox-team.

At this moment Miss Silence Withers entered, followed by Bathsheba
Stoker, daughter of Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker.

She was the friend of Myrtle, and had come to comfort Miss Silence, and
consult with her as to what further search they should institute. The
two, Myrtle's aunt and her friend, were as unlike as they could well
be. Silence Withers was something more than forty years old, a shadowy,
pinched, sallow, dispirited, bloodless woman, with the habitual look of
the people in the funeral carriage which follows next to the hearse, and
the tone in speaking that may be noticed