g bonnet
and veil, and though I heard her laugh slightly once, I did not see her
face.

I saw his, however, and was surprised at the good nature in it. He was
quite the gentleman, and if he had not been in such a hurry, would have
doubtless made, or endeavored to make, himself very agreeable. But he
was just watching his great box carried out to the wagon, and while he
took pains to talk to me--was it to keep me from talking to her?--he was
naturally a little absentminded. He was in haste, too, and insisted upon
placing his wife in the carriage before all his baggage was taken from
the room. And she seemed willing to go. I watched her on purpose to see,
for I was not yet satisfied that she was not playing a part at his
dictation, but I could discover no hint of reluctance in her manner, but
rather a quiet alacrity, as if she felt glad to quit a room to which she
had taken a dislike.

When I saw this, and noted the light step of her feet, I said to myself
that I had been a fool, and lost a little of the interest I had felt for
her. Nor did I regain it till after they had driven away, though she
showed a consideration for me at the last which I had not expected,
leaning from the carriage to give me a good-by pressure of the hand, and
even nodding again and again as they disappeared down the road. For the
fear which could be dissipated in a night was not the fear with which I
had credited her; and of ordinary excitements and commonplace natures I
had seen enough in my long experience as landlady to make me unwilling
to trouble myself with any more of them.

But when the carriage and its accompanying wagon had quite disappeared,
and Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart were virtually as far beyond my reach as if
they were already in New York, I became conscious of a great uneasiness.
This was the more strange in that there seemed to be no especial cause
for it. They had left my house in apparently better spirits than they
had entered it, and there was no longer any reason why I should concern
myself about them. And yet I did concern myself, and came into the house
and into the room they had just vacated, with feelings so unusual that I
was astonished at myself, and not a little provoked. I had a vague
feeling that the woman who had just left was somehow different from the
one I had seen the night before.

But I am a busy woman, and I do not think I should have let this trouble
me long if it had not been for Burritt. But when he came i