When they were in the very height of their guessing, the door suddenly opened. They both rose with a start; but it was only the clerk, who asked them to follow him to the presence of Mr Burlington. They went noiselessly along the long matted passage after their conductor, who was not much of a Ganymede. At the very end, a door stood open, and there were two figures half visible between them and a big round-headed window, full of somewhat pale and cloudy sky. These two people turned round, as some faint sound of the footsteps of Ganymede struck aside from the matting. “Oh, what a lovely creature!--what a beautiful girl! Now I do hope that is the one!” cried, most audibly, a feminine voice. Marian, knowing by instinct that she was meant, shrank back grievously discomfited. Even Agnes was somewhat dismayed by such a preface to their interview; but Ganymede was a trained creature, and much above the weakness of a smile or hesitation--_he_ pressed on unmoved, and hurried them into the presence and the sanctum of Mr Burlington. They came into the full light of the big window, shy, timid, and graceful, having very little self-possession to boast of, their hearts beating, their colour rising--and for the moment it was scarcely possible to distinguish which was the beautiful sister; for Agnes was very near as pretty as Marian in the glow and agitation of her heart. CHAPTER XXIII. A NEW FRIEND. The big window very nearly filled up the whole room. The little place had once been the inmost heart of a long suite of apartments when this was a fashionable house--now it was an odd little nook of seclusion, with panelled walls, painted of so light a colour as to look almost white in the great overflow of daylight; and what had looked like a pale array of clouds in the window at a little distance, made itself out now to be various blocks and projections of white-washed wall pressing very close on every side, and leaving only in the upper half-circle a clear bit of real clouds and unmistakable sky. The room had a little table, a very few chairs, and the minutest and most antique of Turkey carpets laid over the matting. The walls were very high; there was not even a familiar coal-scuttle to lessen the solemnity of the publisher’s retreat and sanctuary; and Mr Burlington was not alone.