"You are very kind, my lady, and I am not ungrateful. But since I came to this land every thing seems like a dream. Indeed, my voyage itself is more like a vision than reality; in a little time I can better express myself. Will you be seated here, in the morning sunshine?--it is very pleasant, or seemed pleasant a little while ago--or would you prefer to sit in-doors? My good friends here have given me a tolerably pretty room, and will make Lady--Lady Phipps very welcome." She spoke the lady's title with the same quick gasp that had marked her utterance before, and again the shudder ran through her form. "Yes, yes; let us go in-doors; then you can lie down quietly, or sit in an easy-chair, while I do my little errand more ceremoniously, for to speak the truth you look very pale yet. Take my arm; indeed you can hardly walk." Barbara only bowed; she could not force herself to touch the lady's arm, but, with a will that was like strength, walked into the house. Lady Phipps followed her, lifting the skirt of her dress daintily from the grass, and smiling with a sort of puzzled air, as if she did not quite understand the scene she was acting in. Barbara entered her own room, which was the best apartment in the house, and according to the usages of the time, furnished with a high bed, covered with a blue and white yarn coverlet, and pillows like little snow-drifts. A bureau of cherry-tree wood, with two or three stiff wooden chairs, an oaken arm-chair with a broad, splint bottom, stood by the window, with its curtain of sweetbrier and morning-glory vines. This, Barbara offered to her visitor. But Lady Phipps, with that genial grace which made every action of hers like a sunbeam, wheeled the chair around, and motioned that Barbara should occupy it. Then she seated herself on the bed, burying one elbow in the snow of the pillow, and drooping her round cheek into the palm of her hand. "Now," she said, with a charming smile, "that we are both comfortable, let me give my invitation in proper form. First, young Lovel, who is my husband's secretary, you know, or are now informed, has set the whole gubernatorial mansion wild about you. He will have it--but no matter about his young fancies--he of course is very anxious that you should not suffer inconvenience, or remain a stranger in the New World, where Englishmen and Englishwomen should meet as brothers and sisters. He could not come himself." "I trust--I hope--that the young gentleman has suffered no injury?" said Barbara, half starting from the chair; while for the first time Lady Phipps saw the color rush to her face. "I should be grieved." "No harm in the world," said Lady Phipps, laughingly interrupting her; "but to tell you the truth, he was so pleasantly employed, that I had no heart to bring him away." Barbara looked up with a questioning glance; a grave smile stole over her lips, and she said very quietly-- "Indeed! You must all have been very anxious about him."