and (if I may use the
expression) one of the most muddy, blotchy complexions it was ever my
misfortune to see in a person's face. Mrs. Beauly, on the other hand,
was a most attractive lady. Her eyes were universally admired, and she
had a most beautifully clear and delicate color. Poor Mrs. Macallan said
of her, most untruly, that she painted.

"No; the defects in the complexion of the deceased lady were not in
any way attributable to her illness. I should call them born and bred
defects in herself.

"Her illness, if I am asked to describe it, I should say was
troublesome--nothing more. Until the last day there were no symptoms
in the least degree serious about the malady that had taken her.
Her rheumatic knee was painful, of course--acutely painful, if you
like--when she moved it; and the confinement to bed was irksome enough,
no doubt. But otherwise there was nothing in the lady's condition,
before the fatal attack came, to alarm her or anybody about her. She had
her books and her writing materials on an invalid table, which worked on
a pivot, and could be arranged in any position most agreeable to her.
At times she read and wrote a good deal. At other times she lay quiet,
thinking her own thoughts, or talking with me, and with one or two lady
friends in the neighborhood who came regularly to see her.

"Her writing, so far as I knew, was almost entirely of the poetical
sort. She was a great hand at composing poetry. On one occasion only she
showed me some of her poems. I am no judge of such things. Her poetry
was of the dismal kind, despairing about herself, and wondering why she
had ever been born, and nonsense like that. Her husband came in more
than once for some hard hits at his cruel heart and his ignorance of his
wife's merits. In short, she vented her discontent with her pen as well
as with her tongue. There were times--and pretty often too--when an
angel from heaven would have failed to have satisfied Mrs. Macallan.

"Throughout the period of her illness the deceased lady occupied the
same room--a large bedroom situated (like all the best bedrooms) on the
first floor of the house.

"Yes: the plan of the room now shown to me is quite accurately taken,
according to my remembrance of it. One door led into the great passage,
or corridor, on which all the doors opened. A second door, at one side
(marked B on the plan), led to Mr. Macallan's sleeping-room. A third
door, on the opposite side (marked C on the pl