! Oh, no, no! she was so
beautiful."

"That she is still. I never saw my sister so much struck with any one.
There is something so striking in her bright glance out of those clear
eyes."

"Ah! if you had only seen her bloom before--"

"The accident?"

"I burnt her," said Alison, almost inaudibly.

"You! you, poor dear! How dreadful for you."

"Yes, I burnt her," said Alison, more steadily. "You ought not to be
kind to me without knowing about it. It was an accident of course, but
it was a fit of petulance. I threw a match without looking where it was
going."

"It must have been when you were very young."

"Fourteen. I was in a naughty fit at her refusing to go to the great
musical meeting with us. We always used to go to stay at one of the
canon's houses for it, a house where one was dull and shy; and I could
not bear going without her, nor understand the reason."

"And was there a reason?"

"Yes, poor dear Ermine. She knew he meant to come there to meet her, and
she thought it would not be right; because his father had objected so
strongly, and made him exchange into a regiment on foreign service."

"And you did not know this?"

"No, I was away all the time it was going on, with my eldest sister,
having masters in London. I did not come home till it was all over, and
then I could not understand what was the matter with the house, or why
Ermine was unlike herself, and papa restless and anxious about her. They
thought me too young to be told, and the atmosphere made me cross and
fretful, and papa was displeased with me, and Ermine tried in vain to
make me good; poor patient Ermine, even then the chief sufferer!"

"I can quite imagine the discomfort and fret of being in ignorance all
the time."

"Dear Ermine says she longed to tell me, but she had been forbidden, and
she went on blaming herself and trying to make me enjoy my holidays as
usual, till this dreadful day, when I had worried her intolerably about
going to this music meeting, and she found reasoning only made me worse.
She still wrote her note of refusal, and asked me to light the taper; I
dashed down the match in a frenzy of temper and--"

She paused for breath, and Grace squeezed her hand.

"We did not see it at first, and then she threw herself down and ordered
me not to come near. Every one was there directly, I believe, but it
burst out again and again, and was not put out till they all thought
she had not an hour to live. There was no