ntly darker, more
dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment. She had
obviously not heard anything to her advantage: and it seemed to me, from
her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself,
notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance to
whatever revelations had been made her.

{During all that time she never turned a page: p184.jpg}

Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared not go
alone; and yet they all wished to go. A negotiation was opened through
the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and fro,
till, I think, the said Sam's calves must have ached with the exercise,
permission was at last, with great difficulty, extorted from the rigorous
Sibyl, for the three to wait upon her in a body.

Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram's had been: we heard
hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library; and
at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and came
running across the hall, as if they were half-scared out of their wits.

"I am sure she is something not right!" they cried, one and all. "She
told us such things! She knows all about us!" and they sank breathless
into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring them.

Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of
things they had said and done when they were mere children; described
books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home: keepsakes that
different relations had presented to them. They affirmed that she had
even divined their thoughts, and had whispered in the ear of each the
name of the person she liked best in the world, and informed them of what
they most wished for.

Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further
enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only blushes,
ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity. The
matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and
again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning had
not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger
urged their services on the agitated fair ones.

In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully engaged
in the scene before me, I heard a hem close at my elbow: I turned, and
saw Sam.

"If you please, miss, the gipsy declares that there is another young
single lady in t