found it and played with it until it was creased and cracked all over
like "crazed" china, yet not torn. Old Madam Leigh's face could not be
said to be wrinkled, for the lines were shallow. They were as fine as if
made with an inkless crow quill, and so close together you would have
thought there was not room for another. Her eyes were dark and bright
She had French blood in her veins, and showed it in her quick glance and
lively motions.

She took us directly into "the chamber" on the left side of the hall
that cut the house in two. Everything there was white, too,--bed and
curtains and chair-covers being of white dimity, trimmed with lace. The
walls were almost covered with portraits. Some were very old. Two of the
brightest hung opposite the bed where Madam Leigh must see them as soon
as she opened her eyes in the morning. One was of a pretty girl in a
white frock, low-necked and short-sleeved, with a red rose in the
bodice, making the fair skin it rested against all the fairer. Her eyes
were dark and sweet; short brown curls, like Madam Leigh's white ones,
clustered about her temples. The other picture was that of a handsome
boy of twenty, or thereabouts, and strikingly like his sister. A dog,
with silky ears, leaned his head against his young master's arm.

I tried hard not to stare at these portraits,--to me the most
interesting things in the room,--for I knew they must be the
twin-children who had died together, ever and ever so many years ago.
The instinct of kindly breeding told me that it would not be polite to
remind the mother of her loss by looking inquisitively at them. But I
could not help stealing a glance at one and the other when the grown
people were intent in talk. Looking led to dreaming, as I was left to
myself and the thoughts suggested by the portraits. I arranged it in my
mind that brother and sister were very fond of each other; that the
sister had fallen into the river where the current was strong, from some
such place as Maiden's Adventure, on Mr. Pemberton's plantation, where
the water was deep above a roaring fall. I thought how she called to her
brother, and how he answered, and I wondered--a chill running down my
spine and catching at my heart--who carried the awful news to the
mother. How could she bear it? how live in this lonely place with
nobody to keep her from thinking of, and missing, her husband and her
children, nobody to care whether she were glad or sorry, sick or well,
aliv