The exertion brought a beautiful color to her cheeks. She leaned from the window and looked out fearlessly on the great ocean which had so lately threatened her life. It lay before her now like a vast field of azure, turning the sunshine into opals. Spite of herself she turned from its treacherous loveliness with a shudder. Blessed or cursed--I know not which to call it--with that exquisite delicacy of sense which makes the most brilliant mind at times almost a slave of the material, she detected among all the perfumes of neighboring woods the faint fragrance of a sweetbriar that had tangled itself with the morning-glories, and blossomed with them. She recognized the perfume. Her quick mind seized upon this as an omen. Strangely arrayed, it must be confessed, for that simple old homestead, Barbara Stafford went through the kitchen, which was, for the moment, empty, and wandered around an angle of the house where the morning sunshine lay warmly upon an old stone bench half buried in the grass. Here she sat down, for the exertion of dressing had wearied her. The air was sweet and balmy, just brightened with a breeze from the distant sea, and a pretty little opening of cultivated fields, separated from her by a rail fence, lay dreamily at her left. Barbara longed to go forth into the shade of those mammoth trees, which filled the distance with their green leafiness, and under their shelter look out upon the New World; but a gentle lassitude lay upon her, and, while she desired exertion, her limbs remained passive--they had not yet shaken off the numbing effects of the storm. She sat dreamily looking forth with the sunshine playing among the waves of her golden hair, and revealing every line and shadow, on a singularly delicate face, which had carried the complexion of infancy almost into middle age. The rich scarf, which she had flung over her in coming forth, fell softly downward, and swept the grass with its gorgeous folds. She was conscious of nothing but a sensation of pleasure at seeing the beautiful earth again after a dreary, dreary voyage across the ocean. As she sat there, the noise of hoofs on the broken road, leading from town, had no power to arrest more than a passing thought. This was followed by a slight rustle of silks, and directly a lady, dressed somewhat after her own fashion, came through an opening in the fence, and walked gracefully forward to where Barbara Stafford was sitting. "I beg ten thousand pardons, madam, but Goody Brown is nowhere to be seen, and I am compelled to introduce myself," she said, with a charming little laugh. "I know at a glance that you are the lady I am in search of; and I--really it is awkward--but I am Lady Phipps." Barbara Stafford gave a sudden start. Her large, gray eyes grew wild and black; slowly and steadily her features shrunk together; and making a faint movement with one hand, as if to catch at something, she struggled to arise, but fell senseless at her visitor's feet.