with which she had been covered
when she revived from her fainting fit. A dull light placed in the deep
recess of the window, made little impression on the arched room. The
visitor timidly stepped to the bed, and said, in a soft whisper, 'Are
you better?'

The lady had fallen into a slumber, and the whisper was too low to awake
her. Her visitor, standing quite still, looked at her attentively.

'She is very pretty,' she said to herself. 'I never saw so beautiful a
face. O how unlike me!'

It was a curious thing to say, but it had some hidden meaning, for it
filled her eyes with tears.

'I know I must be right. I know he spoke of her that evening. I could
very easily be wrong on any other subject, but not on this, not on
this!'

With a quiet and tender hand she put aside a straying fold of the
sleeper's hair, and then touched the hand that lay outside the covering.

'I like to look at her,' she breathed to herself. 'I like to see what
has affected him so much.'

She had not withdrawn her hand, when the sleeper opened her eyes and
started.

'Pray don't be alarmed. I am only one of the travellers from
down-stairs. I came to ask if you were better, and if I could do
anything for you.'

'I think you have already been so kind as to send your servants to my
assistance?'

'No, not I; that was my sister. Are you better?'

'Much better. It is only a slight bruise, and has been well looked to,
and is almost easy now. It made me giddy and faint in a moment. It had
hurt me before; but at last it overpowered me all at once.' 'May I stay
with you until some one comes? Would you like it?'

'I should like it, for it is lonely here; but I am afraid you will feel
the cold too much.'

'I don't mind cold. I am not delicate, if I look so.' She quickly moved
one of the two rough chairs to the bedside, and sat down. The other as
quickly moved a part of some travelling wrapper from herself, and drew
it over her, so that her arm, in keeping it about her, rested on her
shoulder.

'You have so much the air of a kind nurse,' said the lady, smiling on
her, 'that you seem as if you had come to me from home.'

'I am very glad of it.'

'I was dreaming of home when I woke just now. Of my old home, I mean,
before I was married.'

'And before you were so far away from it.'

'I have been much farther away from it than this; but then I took
the best part of it with me, and missed nothing. I felt solitary as I
dropped asleep here, a