asing to the fair girl, who received all
these delicate attentions with coldness and reserve. These things did
not escape the notice of Capitola, who mentally concluded that Craven
Le Noir was a lover of Clara Day, but a most unacceptable lover.

When supper was announced it was evidently hailed by Clara as a great
relief. And after the meal was over she arose and excused herself to
her cousin by saying that her guest, Miss Black, had been exposed to
the storm and was doubtless very much fatigued and that she would show
her to her chamber.

Then, taking a night lamp, she invited Capitola to come and conducted
her to an old-fashioned upper chamber, where a cheerful fire was
burning on the hearth. Here the young girls sat down before the fire
and improved their acquaintance by an hour's conversation. After which
Clara arose, and saying, "I sleep immediately below your room, Miss
Black; if you should want anything rap on the floor and I shall hear
you and get up," she wished her guest a good night's rest and retired
from the room.

Cap was disinclined to sleep; a strange superstitious feeling which she
could neither understand nor throw off had fallen upon her spirits.

She took the night lamp in her hand and got up to examine her chamber.
It was a large, dark, oak-paneled room, with a dark carpet on the floor
and dark-green curtains on the windows and the bedstead. Over the
mantelpiece hung the portrait of a most beautiful black-haired and
black-eyed girl of about fourteen years of age, but upon whose
infantile brow fell the shadow of some fearful woe. There was something
awful in the despair "on that face so young" that bound the gazer in an
irresistible and most painful spell. And Capitola remained standing
before it transfixed, until the striking of the hall clock aroused her
from her enchantment. Wondering who the young creature could have been,
what had been her history and, above all, what had been the nature of
that fearful woe that darkened like a curse her angel brow, Capitola
turned almost sorrowfully away and began to prepare for bed.

She undressed, put on the delicate nightclothes Clara had provided for
her use, said her evening prayers, looked under the bed--a precaution
taken ever since the night upon which she had discovered the
burglars--and, finding all right, she blew out her candle and lay down.
She could not sleep--many persons of nervous or mercurial temperaments
cannot do so the first night in