Em. started and turned around, to be transfixed by a pair of soft, deep, dark-blue eyes, whose gaze held hers spellbound. The “White Spirit” stood before her. CHAPTER XVIII THE LADY OF EDENGARDEN And scenes long past of joy and pain Come wildering through her wondering brain. SCOTT. Yes! There, holding the girl’s eyes spellbound by her mesmeric gaze, stood the Wonder of the Wilderness, the mysterious being known as the “White Spirit,” yet not in the traditional white robe and veil. No! The Lady of Edengarden was attired as any other conventional gentlewoman of the period with artistic tastes might have been. She wore a long flowing soft gray silk dress, with fine white lace about the throat and wrists, and with a knot of light-blue ribbon mixed with lace on her bosom, and another of the same materials among the braids of her sunny golden-brown hair. But the face, with its delicate patrician features, its fair transparent complexion, and its soft, dreamy, dark-blue eyes, was the very same. “I—I beg your pardon, madam,” stammered Em. with an effort to recover herself. “My child!—_Who are you?_” interrupted the lady, taking her hand and turning her around to face the full light of the window. “I am the daughter of John Palmer, the overseer at the Wilderness Manor, madam, Emolyn Palmer, and I thought——” “Em—olyn—Palm—er,” slowly repeated the lady, again interrupting the girl and gazing steadily on her face. To escape this searching gaze into her soul Em. first lowered her eyes and then raised them. Between the two front windows near which they stood hung a long pier glass. Em. caught a full view of the lady and herself as they stood together, reflected in the mirror, and started at the marvelous likeness revealed—in all except dress the two seemed almost duplicates. In the two faces there was scarcely even the perceptible difference that age should have made. “Emolyn Palmer!” slowly repeated the lady. “Yes, yes, to be sure, I know! Emolyn Palmer. Come here, my dear, and sit down.” And the lady led Em. to a _tête-à-tête_ sofa, placed her in one corner, and took the other herself. “I wish to beg your pardon, madam. I am very sorry—I did not know you were here—or I should not have presumed to intrude,” faltered Em. in painful embarrassment. The lady did not answer, only continued to look at her thoughtfully, kindly. “I—I had understood that you were so good as to let the neighbors come in and look at your beautiful pictures and statues when you were away from home, and so I used to come very often last summer, though I was always in a dread for fear I should happen to come while you were here.” The lady smiled on the young speaker, but made no answer.