It was at an early hour then--perhaps a little before six o'clock; and, though there was a certain degree of grey mingling with the blackness over head, yet the light of a wintry morning had not sufficiently dawned to enable any one to see within the various rooms of the château. It was at this period that, in a small chamber, plainly furnished, and somewhat high up in one of the many towers of which the building consisted, there sat a very lovely girl, reading by the light of a small lamp a number of old letters which seemed to cause deep and painful emotions in her heart; for the tears streamed rapidly down her cheeks, and almost drowned her sight, as she continued that which seemed a sad and sorrowful task. The eyes from which those drops poured so rapidly, were large and black as jet, but soft and yet lustrous, even when swimming in the dew of grief. Her hair too, and her fine eyebrows, were of the same inky hue, but her skin was beautifully fair and clear, with a faint tinge of the rose in the soft cheek. In years she might be somewhere between eighteen and twenty, delicate in form, yet with limbs so well proportioned and lines so exquisitely drawn by the pencil of the Great Artist, that every movement displayed some new grace, whether when leaning her head on her hand, she bent down over the page, or raised her look suddenly to heaven, as if appealing on high for comfort or for justice. Her back as she sat was turned towards the door; and her whole soul was evidently busy with the task before her--too busy as it proved; for she heard no step upon the stairs; she heard no hand upon the lock; she heard no movement in the room. She fancied that all in the house, but her own sad self, were sleeping quietly till the break of day. But it was not so; for as she bent over the pages, the door behind her opened quietly and an elderly woman, dressed in the extreme fashion of the day, though in a travelling costume, looked in, and then paused suddenly on seeing the light and the figure I have described. Her features were aquiline and strongly marked, her eyes keen and sunk, her figure tall and upright, but upon the faded cheek, even at that early hour, might be seen aglow of red, which, it needed no very practised eye to discover, was laid on by another hand than that of nature; and her eyebrows also betrayed a debt to art. She paused as I have said for a moment at the door, then advanced with noiseless step, the perfect silence of which was produced by the slippers of fur which she wore to defend her feet in travelling from the cold; and approaching the fair reader from behind, she stretched forth her long, and somewhat meagre neck, and peered over her shoulder at the papers on the table.