wly but surely. She is strangely altered. Dark hollows
lay beneath her eyes, that have grown almost unearthly in expression,
so large are they, and so sombre is the fire that burns within them.
There is a compression about the lips that has grown habitual; small
lines mar the whiteness of her forehead, while among her raven tresses,
did any one mark them closely enough, fine threads of silver may be
traced.

Pacing up and down her room the night before, with widely-opened eyes,
gazing upon the solemn blackness that surrounds her, all the wrongs and
slights she has endured come to her with startling distinctness. No
sense of weariness, no thought of a necessity for sleep, disturbs her
reverie or breaks in upon the monotonous misery of her musings. She is
past all that. Already her death has come to her,--a death to her hope,
and joy, and peace,--even to that poor calm that goes so far to deceive
the outer world.

Oh, the cold, quiet night, when speech is not and sleep has forgotten
us! when all the doubts and fears and jealousies that in the blessed
daylight slumber, rise up to torture us when even the half-suspected
sneer, the covert neglect, that some hours ago were but as faintest
pin-pricks, now gall and madden as a poisoned thrust!

A wild thirst for revenge grows within her breast as one by one she
calls to mind all the many injuries she has received. Strangely
enough,--and unlike a woman,--her anger is concentrated on Philip,
rather than on the one he loves, instinct telling her he is not beloved
in return.

She broods upon her wrongs until, as the first bright streak of yellow
day illumes the room, flinging its glories profusely upon the wall and
ceiling, pretty knickknacks that return its greeting, and angry,
unthankful creature alike, a thought comes to her that promises to
amply satisfy her vengeful craving. As she ponders on it a curious
light breaks upon her face, a smile half triumph, half despair.

* * * * *

Now, standing before her grandfather's room, with a folded letter
crushed within her palm, and a heart that beats almost to suffocation,
she hears him bid her enter.

Fatigued by the unusual exertions of a ball, Mr. Amherst is seated at
his table in a lounging-chair, clad in his dressing-gown, and looking
older, feebler, than is his wont.

He merely glances at his visitor as she approaches, without comment of
any description.

"I have had something