feeling of suspicion and terror, Alice glided to the
window. The moon who sees so many things, and keeps all secrets, with
her cold impenetrable smile, was high in the sky. But Alice saw the red
flicker of a candle from Una's window, and, she thought, the shadow of
her head against the deep side wall of its recess. Then this was gone,
and there were no more sights or sounds that night.

As they sate at breakfast, the small birds were singing merrily from
among the sun-tipped foliage.

"I love this music," said Alice, unusually pale and sad; "it comes with
the pleasant light of morning. I remember, Una, when you used to sing,
like those gay birds, in the fresh beams of the morning; that was in the
old time, when Una kept no secret from poor Alice."

"And Una knows what her sage Alice means; but there are other birds,
silent all day long, and, they say, the sweetest too, that love to sing
by _night_ alone."

So things went on--the elder girl pained and melancholy--the younger
silent, changed, and unaccountable.

A little while after this, very late one night, on awaking, Alice heard
a conversation being carried on in her sister's room. There seemed to be
no disguise about it. She could not distinguish the words, indeed, the
walls being some six feet thick, and two great oak doors intercepting.
But Una's clear voice, and the deep bell-like tones of the unknown, made
up the dialogue.

Alice sprung from her bed, threw her clothes about her, and tried to
enter her sister's room; but the inner door was bolted. The voices
ceased to speak as she knocked, and Una opened it, and stood before her
in her nightdress, candle in hand.

"Una--Una, darling, as you hope for peace, tell me who is here?" cried
frightened Alice, with her trembling arms about her neck.

Una drew back, with her large innocent blue eyes fixed full upon her.

"Come in, Alice," she said, coldly.

And in came Alice, with a fearful glance around. There was no hiding
place there; a chair, a table, a little bedstead, and two or three pegs
in the wall to hang clothes on; a narrow window, with two iron bars
across; no hearth or chimney--nothing but bare walls.

Alice looked round in amazement, and her eyes glanced with painful
inquiry into those of her sister. Una smiled one of her peculiar
sidelong smiles, and said----

"Strange dreams! I've been dreaming--so has Alice. She hears and sees
Una's dreams, and wonders--and well she may."

And she kissed h