As he spoke Mary opened a door, and they passed from the dark staircase into a large, well-lighted, pleasant room--made scrupulously pleasant, Agatha thought. It was filled with all sorts of pretty things, engravings, statuettes, vases, flowers, books, a piano; even the paper on the walls and the hangings at the window were of most delicate and careful choice. No rich drawing-room could show more taste in its arrangements, or have a more soothing effect on a mind to which the sense of æsthetic fitness is its native element. At first, Agatha thought the room was empty, until, lying on a sofa--though so muffled in draperies as nearly to disguise all form--she saw what seemed at first the figure of a child. But coming nearer, the face was no child's face. It was that of a woman, already arrived at middle age. Many wrinkles seamed it; and the hair surrounding it in soft, close bands, was quite grey. The only thing notable about the countenance was a remarkable serenity, which in youth might have conveyed that painful impression of premature age often seen in similar cases, but which now in age made it look young. It was as if time and worldly sorrow had alike forgotten this sad victim of Nature's unkindness--had passed by and left her to keep something of the child's paradise about her still. This face, and the small, thin, infantile-looking hands, crossed on the silk coverlet, were all that was visible. Agatha wondered she had so shrunk from the simple mystery now revealed. Nathanael led her to the sofa, and placed her where Elizabeth could see her easily without turning round. “Here is my wife! Is she like what you expected, sister?” The head was raised, but with difficulty; and Agatha met the cheerful, smiling, loving eyes of her whom people called “poor Elizabeth.” Such thorough content, such admiring pleasure, as that look testified! It took away all the painful constraint which most people experience on first coming into the presence of those whom Heaven has afflicted thus; and made Agatha feel that in putting such an angelic spirit into that poor distorted body, Heaven had not dealt hardly even with Elizabeth Harper. “She is just what I thought,” said a voice, thin, but not unmusical. “You described her well. Come here and kiss me, my dear new sister.” Agatha knelt down and obeyed, with her whole heart in the embrace. Of all greetings in the family, none had been like this. And not the least of its sweetness was that her husband seemed so pleased therewith, looking more like himself than he had done since they entered his father's doors.