r know that in the
silence was hearing--that in the vacancy was a power waiting to be
sought? Hesper was not much alone, and here was a chance it was a pity
she should lose; but, when she came to herself with a sigh, it was not
to pray, and, when she rose, it was to ring the bell.

A good many minutes passed before it was answered. She paced the
room--swiftly; she could sit, but she could not walk slowly. With her
hands to her head, she went sweeping up and down. Her maid's knock
arrested her before her toilet-table, with her back to the door. In a
voice of perfect composure, she desired the woman to ask Miss Yolland
to come to her.

Entering with a slight stoop from the waist, Sepia, with a long, rapid,
yet altogether graceful step, bore down upon Hesper like a fast-sailing
cutter over broad waves, relaxing her speed as she approached her.

"Here I am, Hesper!" she said.

"Sepia," said Hesper, "I am sold."

Miss Yolland gave a little laugh, showing about the half of her
splendid teeth--a laugh to which Hesper was accustomed, but the meaning
of which she did not understand--nor would, without learning a good
deal that were better left unlearned. "To Mr. Redmain, of course!" she
said.

Hesper nodded.

"When are you going to be--"--she was about to say "cut up" but there
was a something occasionally visible in Hesper that now and then
checked one of her less graceful coarsenesses. "When is the purchase to
be completed?" she asked, instead.

"Good Heavens, Sepia! don't be so heartless!" cried Hesper. "Things are
not quite so bad as that! I am not yet in the hell of knowing that. The
day is not fixed for the great red dragon to make a meal of me."

"I see you were not asleep in church, as I thought, all the time of the
sermon, last Sunday," said Sepia.

"I did my best, but I could not sleep: every time little Mowbray
mentioned the beast, I thought of Mr. Redmain; and it made me too
miserable to sleep."

"Poor Hesper!--Well! let us hope that, like the beast in the
fairy-tale, he will turn out a man after all."

"My heart will break," cried Hesper, throwing herself into a chair.
"Pity me, Sepia; _you_ love me a little."

A slight shadow darkened yet more Sepia's shadowy brow.

"Hesper," she said, gravely, "you never told me there was anything of
that sort! Who is it?"

"Mr. Redmain, of course!--I don't know what you mean, Sepia."

"You said your heart was breaking: who is it for?" asked Sepia, almost
imp