remember you, ma'am, and to think that I am pleasing you still,
when I go away and see you no more." This is only one specimen of
the quaint things she says so prettily. Poor little soul! She
shall have a stock of white frocks, made with good deep tucks, to
let out for her as she grows----'"


Miss Halcombe paused, and looked at me across the piano.

"Did the forlorn woman whom you met in the high-road seem young?"
she asked. "Young enough to be two- or three-and-twenty?"

"Yes, Miss Halcombe, as young as that."

"And she was strangely dressed, from head to foot, all in white?"

"All in white."

While the answer was passing my lips Miss Fairlie glided into view
on the terrace for the third time. Instead of proceeding on her
walk, she stopped, with her back turned towards us, and, leaning
on the balustrade of the terrace, looked down into the garden
beyond. My eyes fixed upon the white gleam of her muslin gown and
head-dress in the moonlight, and a sensation, for which I can find
no name--a sensation that quickened my pulse, and raised a
fluttering at my heart--began to steal over me.

"All in white?" Miss Halcombe repeated. "The most important
sentences in the letter, Mr. Hartright, are those at the end,
which I will read to you immediately. But I can't help dwelling a