ing light only allowed me to
make out a figure that seemed to be leaning over the balcony.

Moll would not go in there, though I warrant she was dying of curiosity;
and soon after supper, which she could scarce force herself to touch,
she went up to her own chamber, wishing us a very distant, formal
good-night, and keeping her passionate, angry countenance.

But the next morning, ere I was dressed, she knocked at my door, and,
opening it, I found her with swollen eyes and tears running down her
cheeks.

"Come down," says she, betwixt her sobs, and catching my hand in hers.
"Come down and see."

So we went downstairs together,--I wondering what now had happened,--and
so into the dining-hall. And there I found the scaffold pushed aside,
and the ceiling open to view. Then looking up, I perceived that the
figure bending over the balcony bore Moll's own face, with a most sweet,
compassionate expression in it as she looked down, such as I had
observed when she bent over Dario, having brought him back to life. And
this, thinks I, remembering his words, this is what he must ever see
when he looks heavenwards.

CHAPTER XXI.

_Of the strange things told us by the wise woman._

"Tell me I am wicked; tell me I'm a fool," says Moll, clinging to my
arm.

But I had no feeling now but pity and forgiveness, and so could only try
to comfort her, saying we would make amends to Dario when we saw him
next.

"I will go to him," says she. "For nought in the world would I have him
yield to such a heartless fool as I am. I know where he lodges."

"Well, when we have eaten--"

"Nay; we must go this moment. I cannot be at peace till I have asked him
to forgive. Come with me, or I must go alone."

Yielding to her desire without further ado, I fetched my hat and cloak,
and, she doing likewise, we sallied out forthwith. Taking the side path
by which Dario came and went habitually, we reached a little wicket
gate, opening from the path upon the highway; and here, seeing a man
mending the road, we asked him where we should find Anne Fitch, as she
was called, with whom the painter lodged. Pointing to a neat cottage
that stood by the wayside, within a stone's throw, he told us the "wise
woman" lived there. We crossed over and knocked at the door, and a voice
within bidding us come in, we did so.

There was a very sweet, pleasant smell in the room from the herbs that
hung in little parcels from the beams, for this Anne Fitch wa