Raising herself upon her elbow, the lady continued, "Pray, don't think me fidgety, but won't you please open that shutter. I did not think it would be so dark. There, that's a good girl. Now, come and sit by me on the bed, and tell me of Riverside. Put your feet in the chair, or take this pillow. There, turn a little more to the light. I like to see people when they talk to me." Rosamond complied with each request, and then, never dreaming of the close examination to which her face was subjected, she began to speak of her beautiful home--describing it minutely, and dwelling somewhat at length upon the virtues of its owner. "You like him very much," the lady said, nodding a little affirmative nod to her own question. "Yes--very--very much," was Rosamond's answer; and the lady continued, "And _Mrs_. Browning? Do you like her, too?" "There is no Mrs. Browning," returned Rosamond, adding, quickly, as she saw in her auditor's face an expression she did not understand, "but it is perfectly proper I should live there, for Mrs. Peters, the housekeeper, has charge of me." "Perhaps, then, he will marry you," and the jeweled hands worked nervously under the crimson shawl. "Oh, no, he won't," said Rosamond, decidedly, "he's too old for me. Why, his hair is turning gray!" "That's nothing," answered the lady, a little sharply. "Everybody's hair turns early now-a-days. Sarah found three or four silver threads in mine, this morning. Miss Leyton, don't you love Mr. Browning?" "Why, yes," Rosamond began, and the face upon the pillow assumed a dark and almost fiendish expression. "Why, yes, I love him as a brother, but nothing else. I respect him for his goodness, but it would be impossible to love him with a marrying love." The fierce expression passed away, and Miss Porter was about to speak when Anna Lawrie sent for Rosamond, who excused herself and left the room, thinking that, after all, she should like her old enemy of Atwater Seminary very much. Meantime "the enemy" had buried her face in her pillows, and clenching her blue veined fists, struck at the empty air, just as she would have struck at the owner of Riverside had he been standing there. "Fine time he has of it," she muttered, "living there with her, and she so young and beautiful. I could have strangled her--the jade!-- when she sat there talking so enthusiastically to _me, of him!_ And she loves him, too. I know she does, though she don't know it herself. But I must be wary. I must seem to like this girl--must win her confidence--so I can probe her heart to its core, and if I find they love each other!"--she paused a moment, then grinding her teeth together, added slowly, as if the sound of her voice were musical and sweet, "Marie Porter will be avenged!" That strange woman could be a demon or an angel, and as the latter character suited her just now, Rosamond, on her return to her room, found her all gentleness and love.