ppointed time, Mrs. Barton came up and told me that Mr. Cunliffe was
in the parlour. I had commenced my toilet in rather a leisurely fashion,
but now I made haste to join him, and ran downstairs as quickly as
possible, carrying my fur-lined cloak over my arm.

'You look very nice, my dear,' he said, in quite fatherly fashion. 'Have
I ever seen that gown before?'

The gown in point had been given to me by Lesbia, and had been made in
Paris: it was one of those thin black materials that make up into a
charming demi-toilette, and was a favourite gown with me.

I always remember the speech Lesbia made as she showed it to me. 'When
you put on this gown, Ursula, you must think of the poor little woman
who hoped to have been your sister.' This was one of the pretty little
speeches that she often made. Poor dear Lesbia! she always did things so
gracefully. In Charlie's lifetime I had thought her cold and frivolous,
for she had not then folded up her butterfly wings; but even then she
was always doing kind little things.

It was a dark night, neither moon nor stars to be seen, and after we had
passed the church the darkness seemed to envelop us, and I could barely
distinguish the path. Max seemed quite oblivious of this fact, for he
would persist in pointing out invisible objects of interest. I was told
of the wide stretch of country that lay on the right, and how freshly the
soft breezes blew over the downs.

'There is the asylum, Ursula,' he observed cheerfully, waving his hand
towards the black outline. 'Now we are passing Colonel Maberley's house,
and here is Gladwyn. I wish you could have seen it by daylight.'

I wished so too, for on entering the shrubbery the darkness seemed to
swallow us up bodily, and the heavy oak door might have belonged to a
prison. The sharp clang of the bell made me shiver, and Dante's lines
came into my mind rather inopportunely, 'All ye who enter here, leave
hope behind.' But as soon as the door opened the scene was changed like
magic; the long hall was deliciously warm and light: it looked almost
like a corridor, with its dark marble figures holding sconces, and small
carved tables between them.

'I will wait for you here, Ursula,' whispered Uncle Max; and I went off
in charge of the same maid that I had seen before. Lady Betty had called
her Leah, and as I followed her upstairs I thought of that tender-eyed
Leah who had been an unloved wife.

Leah was very civil, but I thought her manne