anguid
look." And she gazed at her anxiously.

"I sometimes dream melancholy dreams," answered Caroline; "and if I lie
awake for an hour or two in the night, I am continually thinking of the
rectory as a dreary old place. You know it is very near the churchyard.
The back part of the house is extremely ancient, and it is said that the
out-kitchens there were once enclosed in the churchyard, and that there
are graves under them. I rather long to leave the rectory."

"My dear, you are surely not superstitious?"

"No, Mrs. Pryor; but I think I grow what is called nervous. I see things
under a darker aspect than I used to do. I have fears I never used to
have--not of ghosts, but of omens and disastrous events; and I have an
inexpressible weight on my mind which I would give the world to shake
off, and I cannot do it."

"Strange!" cried Shirley. "I never feel so." Mrs. Pryor said nothing.

"Fine weather, pleasant days, pleasant scenes, are powerless to give me
pleasure," continued Caroline. "Calm evenings are not calm to me.
Moonlight, which I used to think mild, now only looks mournful. Is this
weakness of mind, Mrs. Pryor, or what is it? I cannot help it. I often
struggle against it. I reason; but reason and effort make no
difference."

"You should take more exercise," said Mrs. Pryor.

"Exercise! I exercise sufficiently. I exercise till I am ready to drop."

"My dear, you should go from home."

"Mrs. Pryor, I should like to go from home, but not on any purposeless
excursion or visit. I wish to be a governess, as you have been. It would
oblige me greatly if you would speak to my uncle on the subject."

"Nonsense!" broke in Shirley. "What an idea! Be a governess! Better be a
slave at once. Where is the necessity of it? Why should you dream of
such a painful step?"

"My dear," said Mrs. Pryor, "you are very young to be a governess, and
not sufficiently robust. The duties a governess undertakes are often
severe."

"And I believe I want severe duties to occupy me."

"Occupy you!" cried Shirley. "When are you idle? I never saw a more
industrious girl than you. You are always at work. Come," she
continued--"come and sit by my side, and take some tea to refresh you.
You don't care much for my friendship, then, that you wish to leave me?"

"Indeed I do, Shirley; and I don't wish to leave you. I shall never find
another friend so dear."

At which words Miss Keeldar put her hand into Caroline's with an
impulsively