Miss Bell or Isabella Crawford, sister of Richard, who made her appearance with the Colonel after her more or less successful search for the peculiar shade of cerise ribbon,--demands a word of description, and only a word. She was of medium height, well formed and rather plump, with a pleasantly-moulded face and dark hair and eyes, undeniably handsome and ladylike, but with something weak and languid about the mouth, and indefinably creating the impression of a woman incapable of being quite content with affairs as they came, unless they came very pleasantly and fashionably, or of making any well-directed effort to improve them. She was faultlessly dressed and irreproachably gloved, and a close observer would have judged, after a minute inspection, that she would be better at home in the pleasant idleness of a ball or an opera-matinee than where she might be required either to do or to bear. "A nice couple and belong together! Neither one of them good for anything!" had more than once been Joe Harris' irreverent comment, when looking at them as they entered or left carriage or ball room, a little earlier in her acquaintance and when she had not yet enjoyed so many opportunities for studying the peculiar character of Col. Egbert Crawford. Just now she would have had her doubts about sacrificing even the useless Bell to a man whom she herself began to dislike so much. "How do you feel, brother?" asked the sister as she came in,--evidently more as a matter of duty than because she felt any peculiar interest in the answer. "You look pale--your face is drawn--you seem to be in pain!" was the observation of the Colonel, before the invalid could answer, and taking the hand of the latter without seeming to notice the shudder with which his touch was met. "Perhaps so--cousin--Egbert--yes--I do _not_ feel quite so well as I have done," muttered the invalid, who seemed all the while to be making a violent effort to command face and feeling. "There was music in the street, you know--I heard it and I suppose that it agitated me." "Sorry! tut! tut! tut! You ought to be getting better by this time, I should think!" said the Colonel, laying his finger on the pulse of Richard and looking up at vacancy as a Doctor has the habit of doing when he performs that very imposing (imposing upon _whom_?) operation. What was there in his glance, that met the eye of Joe Harris, as he did so--and gave her so plain a confirmation of her worst suspicions? What power is it that lets in the daylight on our darkest wishes and worst motives, just at the moment when we flatter ourselves that we have them more carefully hidden away in darkness than ever before? Joe was still at the window, where she had been joined by Bell, the latter already half-forgetful of her sick brother and eager to show some astounding purchase she had just made at one of the dry-goods palaces.