skating with them. He pretends to be a workman, and puts on our skates
for us; and Jane Carpenter believes that he is in love with her. Jane
is exceedingly kindhearted; but she has a talent for making herself
ridiculous that nothing can suppress. The ice is lovely, and the weather
jolly; we do not mind the cold in the least. They are threatening to go
without me--good-bye!

"Ever your affectionate

"Agatha."

Henrietta looked round for something sharp. She grasped a pair of
scissors greedily and stabbed the air with them. Then she became
conscious of her murderous impulse, and she shuddered at it; but in
a moment more her jealousy swept back upon her. She cried, as if
suffocating, "I don't care; I should like to kill her!" But she did not
take up the scissors again.

At last she rang the bell violently and asked for a railway guide. On
being told that there was not one in the house, she scolded her maid so
unreasonably that the girl said pertly that if she were to be spoken
to like that she should wish to leave when her month was up. This check
brought Henrietta to her senses. She went upstairs and put on the first
cloak at hand, which was fortunately a heavy fur one. Then she took her
bonnet and purse, left the house, hailed a passing hansom, and bade the
cabman drive her to St. Pancras.

When the night came the air at Lyvern was like iron in the intense cold.
The trees and the wind seemed ice-bound, as the water was, and silence,
stillness, and starlight, frozen hard, brooded over the country. At the