y.

"No," said Beth solemnly; "she does not."

Mrs. Crome burst out laughing, and so did the gentleman.

"This is rich, really," he said. "What a quaint little person!"

"Oh, but she's sweet!" said Mrs. Crome; and then she kissed Beth, and
Beth noticed that she had been eating onions, and for long afterwards
she associated the smell with theatres, frivolous talk, and a
fair-haired woman smiling fatuously on the brink of perdition.

Aunt Victoria retired early to perform her evening ablutions, and on
this occasion she had gone up just as usual, with a little bell, which
she rang when she was ready for Beth to come. In the midst of the talk
and laughter in the drawing-room the little bell suddenly sounded
emphatically, and Beth fled. She found Aunt Victoria out on the
landing in her petticoat and dressing-jacket, and without her auburn
front, a sign of great perturbation. She had heard Beth's voice in the
drawing-room, and proceeded to admonish her severely. But Beth heard
not a word; for the sight of the old lady's stubbly white hair had
plunged her into a reverie, and already, when the vision and the dream
were upon her, no Indian devotee, absorbed in contemplation, could be
less sensitive to outward impressions than Beth was. Aunt Victoria had
to shake her to rouse her.

"What are you thinking of, child?" she demanded.

"Riding to the rescue," Beth answered dreamily.

"Don't talk nonsense," said Aunt Victoria. Beth gazed at her with a
blank look. She was saving souls just then, and could attend to
nothing else.

Beth's terror of the Judgment never returned; but after she had been
away from home a few weeks she began to have another serious trouble
which disturbed her towards evening in the same way. The first symptom
was a curious lapse of memory which worried her a good deal. She could
not remember how much of the garden was to be seen from her mother's
bedroom window at home, and she longed to fly back and settle the
question. Then she became conscious of being surrounded by the country
on every side, and it oppressed her to think of it. She was a
sea-child, living inland for the first time, and there came upon her a
great yearning for the sight and sound of moving waters. She sniffed
the land-breeze, and found it sweet but insipid in her nostrils after
the tonic freshness of the sea-air. She heard the voice of her beloved
in the sough of the wind among the trees, and it made her
inexpressibly melancholy.