This future, so full of strange and exciting possibilities, attracted with an irresistible power the imaginative mind of Agnes. She went through it chapter by chapter--through earnest dialogues, overpowering emotions, many a varying and exciting scene. The Old Wood Lodge, the Old Wood House, the Hall, the Rector, the old Miss Rivers, the unknown hero, Louis--these made a little private world of persons and places to the vivid imagination of the young dreamer. They floated down even upon Mrs Edgerley’s drawing-room, extinguishing its gay lights, its pretty faces, and its hum of conversation; but with still more effect filled all her mind and meditations, as she rested, half reclining, upon the pretty chintz sofa in the pretty dressing-room, in the sweet summer noon with which this sweet repose was so harmonious and suitable. The window was open, and the soft wind blowing in fluttered all the leaves of that book upon the little table, which the sunshine, entering too, brightened into a dazzling whiteness with all its rims and threads of gold. A fragrant breath came up from the garden, a hum of soft sound from all the drowsy world out of doors. Agnes, in the corner of the sofa, laying back her head among its pretty cushions, with the smile of fancy on her lips, and the meditative inward light shining in her eyes, playing her foot idly on the carpet, playing her fingers idly among a little knot of flowers which lay at her side, and which, in this sweet indolence, she had not yet taken the trouble to arrange in the little vase--was as complete a picture of maiden meditation--of those charmed fancies, sweet and fearless, which belong to her age and kind, as painter or poet could desire to see. When Marian suddenly broke in upon the retirement of her sister, disturbed, fluttered, a little afraid, but with no appearance of painfulness, though there was a certain distress in her excitement. Marian’s eyes were downcast, abashed, and dewy, her colour unusually bright, her lips apart, her heart beating high. She came into the little quiet room with a sudden burst, as if she had fled from some one; but when she came within the door, paused as suddenly, put up her hands to her face, blushed an overpowering blush, and dropped at once with the shyest, prettiest movement in the world, into a low chair which stood behind the door. Agnes, waking slowly out of her own bright mist of fancy, saw all this with a faint wonder--noticing scarcely anything more than that Marian surely grew prettier every day, and indeed had never looked so beautiful all her life. “May! you look quite----” lovely, Agnes was about to say; but she paused in consideration of her sister’s feelings, and said “frightened” instead.