ecret terror
enveloping it.

But Miss Knollys, while more attentive to my remarks than her sister had
been, showed, by certain unmistakable signs, that her heart and interest
were anywhere but in that room; and while I could not regard this as
throwing any discredit upon my powers of pleasing--which have rarely
failed when I have exerted them to their utmost,--I still could not but
experience the dampening effect of her manner. I went on chatting, but
in a desultory way, noting all that was odd in her unaccountable
reception of me, but giving, as I firmly believe, no evidence of my
concern and rapidly increasing curiosity.

The peculiarities observable in this my first interview with these
interesting but by no means easily-to-be-understood sisters continued
all day. When one sister came in, the other stepped out, and when dinner
was announced and I was ushered down the bare and dismal hall into an
equally bare and unattractive dining-room, it was to find the chairs set
for four, and Lucetta only seated at the table.

"Where is Loreen?" I asked wonderingly, as I took the seat she pointed
out to me with one of her faint and quickly vanishing smiles.

"She cannot come at present," my young hostess stammered with an
unmistakable glance of distress at the large, hearty-looking woman who
had summoned me to the dining-room.

"Ah," I ejaculated, thinking that possibly Loreen had found it necessary
to assist in the preparation of the meal, "and your brother?"

It was the first time he had been mentioned since my first inquiries. I
had shrunk from the venture out of a motive of pure compassion, and they
had not seen fit to introduce his name into any of our conversations.
Consequently I awaited her response, with some anxiety, having a secret
premonition that in some way he was at the bottom of my strange
reception.

Her hasty answer, given, however, without any increase of embarrassment,
somewhat dispelled this supposition.

"Oh, he will be in presently," said she. "William is never very
punctual."

But when he did come in, I could not help seeing that her manner
instantly changed and became almost painfully anxious. Though it was my
first meeting with the real head of the house, she waited for an
interchange of looks with him before giving me the necessary
introduction, and when, this duty performed, he took his seat at the
table, her thoughts and attention remained so fixed upon him that she
well-nigh forgot the o