er, but walked towards a small door which seemed to
open into some inner apartment: she opened it, pronounced the name of
"Aletheia," and returned to her place. There was a pause. Lilias had
heard no sound of steps, but suddenly Walter and Gabriel moved aside,
she looked up, and Sir Michael himself placing a hand within hers,
said--"This is your cousin Aletheia; her father, my third brother, died
only last year." The hand she held sent a chill through Lilias's whole
frame, for it was cold as marble, and when she fixed her eyes on the
face that bent over her, a feeling of awe and distress, for which she
could not account, seemed to take possession of her.

It was not a beautiful countenance, far from it, yet most remarkable;
the features were fixed and still as a statue, rigid, with a calm so
passionless, that one might have thought the very soul had fled from
that form, the more so as the whole of the marble face was overspread
with the most extraordinary paleness. There was not a tinge of color in
the cheek, scarce even on the lips, and the dead white of the forehead
contrasted quite unnaturally with the line of hair, which was of a soft
brown, and gathered simply round the head; it was as though some intense
and awful thought lay so heavy at her heart that it had curdled the very
blood within it, and drawn it away from the veins that it might be
traced distinctly under the pure skin. It was singular that the
immovable stillness of that face whispered no thought of soothing rest,
for it was a stillness as of death--a death to natural joys and
feelings; and mournfully from under their heavy lids, the eyes looked
out with a deep, earnest gaze, which seemed to ignore all existing
sights and things, and to be fixed on vacancy alone. Aletheia wore a
dress of some dark material, clasped round the throat, and falling in
heavy folds from the braid which confined it at the waist; she stood
motionless, holding the little warm hand Sir Michael had placed in hers,
without seeming almost to perceive the girlish form that stood before
her. There could not have been a greater contrast than between that pale
statue and the bright, glowing Lilias, the play of whose features, ever
smiling or blushing, was fitful as waters sparkling beneath the
sunbeam.

"Do you not welcome your cousin, Aletheia," said Sir Michael, with a
frown. She started fearfully, as if she had been roused by a blow, from
the state in which she was absorbed. She loo