e felt as if it would have
been a good thing, quite the best thing that could happen, if she could
turn her face to the wall and die. All that past season, its triumphs,
its pleasures, its varieties, was like a garish dream, a horror to look
back upon, hateful to remember.

In vain did Mary and Hartfield urge Lesbia to join in their simple
pleasures, their walks and rides and drives, and boating excursions. She
always refused.

'You know I never cared much for roaming about these everlasting hills,'
she told Mary. 'I never had your passion for Lakeland. It is very good
of you to wish to have me, but it is quite impossible. I have hardly
strength enough for a little walk in the garden.'

'You would have more strength if you went out more,' pleaded Mary,
almost with tears. 'Mr. Horton says sun and wind are the best doctors
for you. Lesbia, you frighten me sometimes. You are just letting
yourself fade away.'

'If you knew how I hate the world and the sky, Mary, you wouldn't urge
me to go out of doors,' Lesbia answered, moodily. 'Indoors I can read,
and get away from my own thoughts somehow, for a little while. But out
yonder, face to face with the hills and the lake--the scenes I have
known all my life--I feel a heart-sickness that is worse than death. It
maddens me to see that old, old picture of mountain and water, the same
for ever and ever, no matter what hearts are breaking.'

Mary crept close beside her sister's couch, put her arm round her neck,
laid her cheek--rich in the ruddy bloom of health--against Lesbia's
pallid and sunken cheek, and comforted her as much as she could with
tender murmurs and loving kisses. Other comfort, she could give none.
All the wisdom in the world will not cure a girl's heart-sickness when
she has flung away the treasures of her love upon a worthless object.

And so the days went by, peacefully, but sadly; for the shadow of doom
hung heavily over the house upon the Fell. Nobody who looked upon Lady
Maulevrier could doubt that her days were numbered, that the oil was
waxing low in the lamp of life. The end, the awful, mysterious end, was
drawing near; and she who was called was making no such preparations as
the Christian makes to answer the dread summons. As she had lived, she
meant to die--an avowed unbeliever. More than once Mary had taken
courage, and had talked to her grandmother of the world beyond, the
blessed hope of re-union with the friends we have lost, in a new and
brig