istened attentively; she took her handkerchief, wiped away her
tears, attempted to smile, and so resolutely effaced the expression of
pain that was stamped on every feature that she presently seemed in the
state of happy indifference which comes with a life exempt from
care. Whether it were that the habit of living in this house to which
infirmities confined her enabled her to perceive certain natural effects
that are imperceptible to the senses of others, but which persons under
the influence of excessive feeling are keen to discover, or whether
Nature, in compensation for her physical defects, had given her more
delicate sensations than better organized beings,--it is certain that
this woman had heard the steps of a man in a gallery built above the
kitchens and the servants' hall, by which the front house communicated
with the "back-quarter." The steps grew more distinct. Soon, without
possessing the power of this ardent creature to abolish space and meet
her other self, even a stranger would have heard the foot-fall of a man
upon the staircase which led down from the gallery to the parlor.

The sound of that step would have startled the most heedless being into
thought; it was impossible to hear it coolly. A precipitate, headlong
step produces fear. When a man springs forward and cries, "Fire!" his
feet speak as loudly as his voice. If this be so, then a contrary
gait ought not to cause less powerful emotion. The slow approach, the
dragging step of the coming man might have irritated an unreflecting
spectator; but an observer, or a nervous person, would undoubtedly have
felt something akin to terror at the measured tread of feet that seemed
devoid of life, and under which the stairs creaked loudly, as though two
iron weights were striking them alternately. The mind recognized at once
either the heavy, undecided step of an old man or the majestic tread of
a great thinker bearing the worlds with him.

When the man had reached the lowest stair, and had planted both feet
upon the tiled floor with a hesitating, uncertain movement, he stood
still for a moment on the wide landing which led on one side to the
servants' hall, and on the other to the parlor through a door concealed
in the panelling of that room,--as was another door, leading from the
parlor to the dining-room. At this moment a slight shudder, like the
sensation caused by an electric spark, shook the woman seated in the
armchair; then a soft smile brightened he