t will cause
me much satisfaction to meet. It would give me a faint relief, indeed,
to find that there were some matron of exalteder rank than mine to save
me from my probable fate of bowling dark sayings at our old host,
General Parker, from the season of clear soup to that of peaches and
nuts. I dress quickly. The toilet is never to me a work of art. It is
not that from my lofty moral stand-point I look down upon meretricious
aids to faulty Nature. If I thought that it would set me on a fairer
standing with Mrs. Zephine, I would paint my cheeks an inch thick; would
prune my eyebrows; daub my eyes, and make my hair yellower than any
buttercups in the meadow; but I know that it would be of no avail. I
should still be, compared to her, as a sign-painting to a Titian. For a
long time now I have cared naught for clothes. I used greatly to respect
their power, but they have done _me_ no good; and so my reverence for
them is turned into indifference and contempt.

I think that I must be late. Roger went down some minutes ago, at my
request, so that there might be _one_ representative of the family in
time.

I hasten down-stairs, fastening my last bracelet as I go, and open the
drawing-room door. I was wrong. There is no one down yet: even Roger has
disappeared. I am the first. This is my impression for a moment: then I
perceive that there is some one in the bow-window, half hidden by the
drooped curtains; some one who, hearing my entry, is advancing to meet
me. It is Musgrave! My first impulse, a wrong one, I need hardly say, is
to turn and flee. I have even laid hold of the just abandoned handle,
when he speaks.

"Are you going?" he says in a low voice, marked by great and evidently
ungovernable agitation; "do not! if you wish, I will leave the room."

I look at him, and our eyes meet. He always was a pale young man--no
bucolic beef-and-beer ruddiness about him--always of a healthy swart
pallor; but now he is deadly white!--so, by-the-by, I fancy am I! His
dark eyes burn with a shamed yet eager glow.

With the words and tones of our last parting ringing in our ears, we
both feel that it would be useless affectation to attempt to meet as
ordinary acquaintance.

"No," say I, faintly, almost in a whisper, "it--it does not matter! only
that I did not know that you were to be here!"

"No more did I, until this morning!" he answers, eagerly; "this
morning--at the last moment--young Parker asked me to come down with
him--