at the air she wore should make her
appearance more womanly; and that black dress and crape-bonnet, in some
way, touched him to mournful thoughts of her that helped a partial
forgetfulness of wounded self.

Rose had driven off. He was looking at the same spot, where Caroline's
hand waved from her carriage. Juliana was not seen. Caroline requested
her to nod to him once, but she would not. She leaned back hiding her
eyes, and moving a petulant shoulder at Caroline's hand.

'Has he offended you, my child?'

Juliana answered harshly:

'No-no.'

The wheels rolled on, and Caroline tried other subjects, knowing possibly
that they would lead Juliana back to this of her own accord.

'You saw how she treated him?' the latter presently said, without moving
her hand from before her eyes.

'Yes, dear. He forgives her, and will forget it.'

'Oh!' she clenched her long thin hand, 'I pray that I may not die before
I have made her repent it. She shall!'

Juliana looked glitteringly in Caroline's face, and then fell a-weeping,
and suffered herself to be folded and caressed. The storm was long
subsiding.

'Dearest! you are better now?' said Caroline.

She whispered: 'Yes.'

'My brother has only to know you, dear--'

'Hush! That's past.' Juliana stopped her; and, on a deep breath that
threatened to break to sobs, she added in a sweeter voice than was common
to her, 'Ah, why--why did you tell him about the Beckley property?'

Caroline vainly strove to deny that she had told him. Juliana's head
shook mournfully at her; and now Caroline knew what Juliana meant when
she begged so earnestly that Evan should be kept ignorant of her change
of fortune.

Some days after this the cold struck Juliana's chest, and she sickened.
The three sisters held a sitting to consider what it was best to do with
her. Caroline proposed to take her to Beckley without delay. Harriet was
of opinion that the least they could do was to write to her relatives and
make them instantly aware of her condition.

But the Countess said 'No,' to both. Her argument was, that Juliana being
independent, they were by no means bound to 'bundle' her, in her state,
back to a place where she had been so shamefully maltreated: that here
she would live, while there she would certainly die: that absence of
excitement was her medicine, and that here she had it. Mrs. Andrew,
feeling herself responsible as the young lady's hostess, did not
acquiesce in the Countess's vie