ozenge-box. I fear the kitten has
rolled it away," said the tiny old lady, involuntarily continuing her
beaver-like notes.

"Is it a great treasure, aunt?" said Mr. Farebrother, putting up his
glasses and looking at the carpet.

"Mr. Ladislaw gave it me," said Miss Noble. "A German box--very
pretty, but if it falls it always spins away as far as it can."

"Oh, if it is Ladislaw's present," said Mr. Farebrother, in a deep tone
of comprehension, getting up and hunting. The box was found at last
under a chiffonier, and Miss Noble grasped it with delight, saying, "it
was under a fender the last time."

"That is an affair of the heart with my aunt," said Mr. Farebrother,
smiling at Dorothea, as he reseated himself.

"If Henrietta Noble forms an attachment to any one, Mrs. Casaubon,"
said his mother, emphatically,--"she is like a dog--she would take
their shoes for a pillow and sleep the better."

"Mr. Ladislaw's shoes, I would," said Henrietta Noble.

Dorothea made an attempt at smiling in return. She was surprised and
annoyed to find that her heart was palpitating violently, and that it
was quite useless to try after a recovery of her former animation.
Alarmed at herself--fearing some further betrayal of a change so marked
in its occasion, she rose and said in a low voice with undisguised
anxiety, "I must go; I have overtired myself."

Mr. Farebrother, quick in perception, rose and said, "It is true; you
must have half-exhausted yourself in talking about Lydgate. That sort
of work tells upon one after the excitement is over."

He gave her his arm back to the Manor, but Dorothea did not attempt to
speak, even when he said good-night.

The limit of resistance was reached, and she had sunk back helpless
within the clutch of inescapable anguish. Dismissing Tantripp with a
few faint words, she locked her door, and turning away from it towards
the vacant room she pressed her hands hard on the top of her head, and
moaned out--

"Oh, I did love him!"

Then came the hour in which the waves of suffering shook her too
thoroughly to leave any power of thought. She could only cry in loud
whispers, between her sobs, after her lost belief which she had planted
and kept alive from a very little seed since the days in Rome--after
her lost joy of clinging with silent love and faith to one who,
misprized by others, was worthy in her thought--after her lost woman's
pride of reigning in his memory--after her sweet dim persp