What a strange sight it must have been! the slow sunbeam creeping over the faded carpet, and lighting up the dust-covered furniture and the dusky walls. Kitty's glance first turned, naturally enough, to the bed, which, richly curtained and spacious, stood on the left of the door. The curtains were swept back and the bed was made, but it was apparent that some one had occupied it, lying on the outside; the pillows were displaced and crushed, and the coverlet was deranged. That, since the occupation of that _some one_, the room had never been arranged or touched, seemed evident, from the confusion and disorder that prevailed. The door of the wardrobe on the right was partly open, and a dress was hanging out from it. A shawl, faded beyond recognition, hung upon the chair near Kitty, and at her feet lay a slipper--such a slim, pretty little slipper! while on the toilette table, you could have sworn, a hasty hand had just dropped the stopper in that odor-bottle, and pushed back the glove-box that stood open under the glass. Pins rusted in the embroidered cushion; dust inch thick on the mirror and over all, told of a dreary space since any human face had been reflected there. Upon a little table by the window stood a work-box and some books, and in a slender vase, the ghosts of some flowers that fell to dust at Kitty's touch. But what most excited her wonder, was a picture, that, with its face to the wall, was placed on the floor near the door. It evidently did not belong to the furniture of the room, and had been put there hastily, and to be out of the way. Kitty surveyed it from her seat curiously, and at last crept up to it, and turned it around, then slipping down on the carpet before it, was soon lost in admiration of the lovely face it presented to her. The lustre of the dark-blue eyes, and the delicate outline of the oval face, from which large wavy curls of fair hair were pushed back with girlish freedom, stamped themselves indelibly upon Kitty's retentive memory. It must have been an odd sight; the eager child, in that dark, uncanny room, upon her hands and knees before the picture, watching it in utter fascination, forgetful of the passing moments, and of all save the sweet face so strangely banished from the light.