d lady looked fixedly at the kneeling figure before her. "I've
nobody but you, my dear," she said. "You are a little like your mamma
sometimes."

"Am I?" said Judith. "So much the better. Perhaps it will make you feel as
if I could help you."

"You are not like her to-day. Your eyes are so sad and strange." Judith
tried to smile. "Your brother, Mr. Herbert, is more like her. I noticed it
when he was here last. She had just that bright, happy look."

"I don't remember that," Judith answered. (One recollected the
school-girl, and one the wife.)

"And that sweet smile: Mr. Herbert has that too. One could see how good
she was. But I didn't mean to talk about that. There is something--I
sha'n't be easy till I have told some one."

"Tell me, my dear," said Judith.

The schoolmistress looked anxiously round: "I may be mistaken--I hope I
am--but do you know, dear, I doubt I'm not quite so wakeful as I ought to
be. You wouldn't notice it, of course, because it is when I am alone or as
good as alone. But sometimes--just now and then, you know--when I have
been with the girls while they took their lessons from the masters, the
time has seemed to go so very fast. I should really have thought they
hadn't drawn a line when the drawing-master has said, 'That will do for
to-day, young ladies,' and none of them seemed surprised. And once or
twice I really haven't been _quite_ sure what they have been practising
with Mr. Herbert. But music is so very soothing, isn't it?"

Judith held her breath in terror. And yet would it not be better if that
horrible thought came to Miss Crawford too? If others attacked him his
sister might defend. Nevertheless, she drew a long sigh of relief when the
old lady went on, as if confessing a crime of far deeper dye: "And in
church--it isn't easy to keep awake sometimes, one has heard the service
so often, and the sermons seem so very much alike--suppose some
unprincipled young man--"

"Dear Miss Crawford, no one can wonder if you are drowsy now and then. You
are always so busy it is only natural."

"But it isn't right. And," with the quick tears gathering in her eyes, "I
ought to have owned it before. Only, I have tried so hard to keep awake!"

"I know you have."

Miss Crawford drew one of her hands from Judith's clasp to find her
handkerchief, and then laid her head on the girl's shoulder and sobbed.
"If it has happened so," she said--"if it has been my carelessness that
has done it, I shall