ssible that she could
speak with Lady Carset that night, if she could, indeed, gain admittance
to the castle; but she went around to a back entrance, and so made her
way, unseen, to the tower-chamber, which opened into Lady Carset's
dressing-room. There she sat down and waited, hour after hour, until at
last the door opened, and the old countess came in, walking feebly
between two young girls, one of whom she had never seen before, but the
other made the sinking heart leap in her bosom.

When the old countess entered, the lights in her room were shaded, but
they struck those masses of jewels in the snowy whiteness of her hair
and upon her bosom with a brilliancy that revealed the gray pallor of
that aged face with painful distinctness.

Hannah Yates arose from the shaded place in which she was sitting, and
came forward to support her old mistress.

The countess looked up, and a faint smile flickered across her face.

"Ah! Yates, is it you?"

Mrs. Yates made no answer, but took that frail form in her arms and
carried it to the couch.

"Take them off! take them off! They are heavy, ah, so heavy!"

The old lady put a waving hand to her head, indicating that it was the
diamonds that troubled her.

Mrs. Yates, who had performed this office many a time before, unclasped
the jewels and laid them on a sofa-table close by, then she removed the
burning stones from that oppressed bosom, and unclasped them from the
slender arms, while her mistress lay struggling for breath, with her
eyes fixed on that kind old face with a look of touching helplessness.

"Give me water," she whispered.

Caroline ran for a goblet of water, and held it to those white lips. The
countess drank a swallow and then called out:

"Wine! wine!"

Wine was brought, and she drank a little.

"Go, my child," she whispered, seeing how anxious and pale Clara
appeared, in spite of the cloudy softness of her dress. "Go to your room
and get some rest. Ah, me! how all this wearies, wearies!"

The two girls hesitated. There was something in that sweet old face that
kept them spellbound. The old lady saw it, and reaching forth her hand,
drew them, one after the other, down to her lips, and kissed them.

"Good-night, good-night!"

How softly those gentle words fell from her lips. With what yearning
fondness her eyes followed those young creatures as they went
reluctantly from the room, looking back in wistful sorrow, as they left
her in the care of Yate