arier--in her, that is: outside there was no change. Nothing was
overhead, nothing under foot, nothing on either hand, but the same
pale, faint, bluish glimmer. She wept at last, then grew very angry,
and then sullen; but nobody heeded whether she cried or laughed. It was
all the same to the cold unmoving twilight that rounded her. On and on
went the dreary hours--or did they go at all?--"no change, no pause, no
hope;"--on and on till she FELT she was forgotten, and then she grew
strangely still and fell asleep.

The moment she was asleep, the wise woman came, lifted her out, and
laid her in her bosom; fed her with a wonderful milk, which she
received without knowing it; nursed her all the night long, and, just
ere she woke, laid her back in the blue sphere again.

When first she came to herself, she thought the horrors of the
preceding day had been all a dream of the night. But they soon asserted
themselves as facts, for here they were!--nothing to see but a cold
blue light, and nothing to do but see it. Oh, how slowly the hours went
by! She lost all notion of time. If she had been told that she had been
there twenty years, she would have believed it--or twenty minutes--it
would have been all the same: except for weariness, time was for her no
more.

Another night came, and another still, during both of which the wise
woman nursed and fed her. But she knew nothing of that, and the same
one dreary day seemed ever brooding over her.

All at once, on the third day, she was aware that a naked child was
seated beside her. But there was something about the child that made
her shudder. She never looked at Agnes, but sat with her chin sunk on
her chest, and her eyes staring at her own toes. She was the color of
pale earth, with a pinched nose, and a mere slit in her face for a
mouth.

"How ugly she is!" thought Agnes. "What business has she beside me!"

But it was so lonely that she would have been glad to play with a
serpent, and put out her hand to touch her. She touched nothing. The
child, also, put out her hand--but in the direction away from Agnes.
And that was well, for if she had touched Agnes it would have killed
her. Then Agnes said, "Who are you?" And the little girl said, "Who are
you?" "I am Agnes," said Agnes; and the little girl said, "I am Agnes."
Then Agnes thought she was mocking her, and said, "You are ugly;" and
the little girl said, "You are ugly."

Then Agnes lost her temper, and put out her hands