When Barbara Stafford arose from the stone bench against which she had fallen, there was pallor on her cheek, and bewilderment in her eyes, deeper and more painful to behold than is usual after a mere fainting-fit. Lady Phipps observed the pallor increase, and that she shrunk back with a shudder from the arm which was striving to support her. "My dear madam, you are not well; you suffer," said the kind matron, coloring slightly as she felt the thrill of repulsion. "Let me help you into the house." "No," answered Barbara, sweeping one hand across her forehead three or four times, while her eyes were fastened on Lady Phipps with a troubled, wistful look, as if she had not really seen her features before. "I think--" She paused, turned her eyes away from the face she had been searching, and a spasm of pain swept over her forehead, drawing the brows together with an unmistakable sign of acute sensibility. She looked up again, striving to smile. "Ah, now I remember. Yes, I am sometimes subject to these turns--it is very girlish and weak, no doubt, but the long sea-voyage, the storm--do not mind me, lady, I am well now; quite well and strong. Forgive me, but"--again she broke off, pressed one hand hard against her side, and said, with a quick catch of the breath, "Lady Phipps--did you say that Lady Phipps had done me this honor?" "Yes; I was about to give my name, when you were seized with this terrible fainting-fit. The governor is so much occupied just now that he could not come himself, though he was deeply interested in your condition. I assure you I really could hardly keep from embracing that dear young Lovel for his bravery in rescuing you from the foundered boat." "Young Lovel!" repeated Barbara, quickly; "young Lovel! Is that his name?" "Of course you could not be expected to know any thing about names; but you will remember the young man who nearly lost his own life in dragging you from the water?" "Remember him! oh, yes." "And the dear old minister, brother Parris, with his mild, quiet ways--to think that he should have been in Boston for the first time in years, just to help save you; it seems quite like a miracle, or a bit of the witchcraft that is so fashionable just now." "Parris--Parris!" repeated Barbara, with a laboring breath. "That," said Lady Phipps, "was the name of the tall gentleman; an old friend of Sir William's; indeed, the very man whose benediction made me his wife." The hand which Barbara had again lifted to her forehead dropped slowly down; her lips looked cold and blue, but she stood up firmly, and excepting one wild glance over her shoulder, as if impelled to flee, kept her ground, though for an instant she seemed turning into a statue. After a little, she looked up with one of those gentle smiles, with which the most refined anguish seeks to clothe itself before the world, and said: