ng her, uttered a little scream.

''Tis I, Gertrude, darling--Lily--Lily Walsingham,' she said, perhaps as
much dismayed as Gertrude herself; 'I'll return in a moment.'

She saw the figure, outside, glide hurriedly away by the side of the
wall.

'Lily--Lily, darling; no, don't go--I did not expect you;' and Gertrude
stopped suddenly, and then as suddenly said--

'You are very welcome, Lily;' and she drew the window down, and there
was another pause before she said--'Had not we better go up to the
drawing-room, and--and--Lily darling, you're very welcome. Are you
better?'

And she took little Lily's hand, and kissed her.

Little Lilias all this time had said nothing, so entirely was she
disconcerted. And her heart beat fast with a kind of fear: and she felt
Gertrude's cold hand tremble she fancied in hers.

'Yes, darling, the drawing-room, certainly,' answered Lily. And the two
young ladies went up stairs holding hands, and without exchanging
another word.

'Aunt Becky has gone some distance to see a sick pensioner; I don't
expect her return before an hour.'

'Yes--I know--and she came, dear Gertrude, to see me; and I should not
have come, but that she asked me, and--and----'

She stopped, for she was speaking apologetically, like an intruder, and
she was shocked to feel what a chasm on a sudden separated them, and
oppressed with the consciousness that their old mutual girlish
confidence was dead and gone; and the incident of the evening, and
Gertrude's changed aspect, and their changed relations, seemed a
dreadful dream.

Gertrude looked so pale and wretchedly, and Lily saw her eyes, wild and
clouded, once or twice steal toward her with a glance of such dark alarm
and enquiry, that she was totally unable to keep up the semblance of
their old merry gossiping talk, and felt that Gertrude read in her face
the amazement and fear which possessed her.

'Lily, darling, let us sit near the window, far away from the candles,
and look out; I hate the light.'

'With all my heart,' said Lily. And two paler faces than theirs, that
night, did not look out on the moonlight prospect.

'I hate the light, Lily,' repeated Gertrude, not looking at her
companion, but directly out through the bow-window upon the dark outline
of the lawn and river bank, and the high grounds on the other side. 'I
hate the light--yes, I hate the light, because my thoughts are
darkness--yes, my thoughts are darkness. No human being knows me; an