“I am here,” said a low voice suddenly, close beside them. The girls started back, exceedingly confused and ashamed. They had not perceived a sort of little bower, woven among the willows, from which now hastily appeared the third person who spoke. She was a little older than Agnes, very slight and girlish in her person--very dark of complexion, with a magnificent mass of black hair, and large liquid dark eyes. Nothing else about her was remarkable; her features were small and delicate, her cheeks colourless, her very lips pale; but her eyes, which were not of a slumbrous lustre, but full of light, rapid, earnest, and irregular, lighted up her dark pallid face with singular power and attractiveness. She turned upon them quickly as they stood distressed and irresolute before her. “I did not mean to interrupt you,” said this new-comer; “but you were about to speak of me, and I thought it only honest to give you notice that I was here.” “Thank you,” said Agnes with humility. “We are strangers, and did not know--we scarcely know any one here; and we thought you were nearly about our own age, and perhaps would help us--” Here Agnes stopped short; she was not skilled in making overtures of friendship. “No, indeed no,” cried their new acquaintance, hurriedly. “I never make friends. I could be of no use. I am only a dependent, scarcely so good as that. I am nothing here.” “And neither are we,” said Agnes, following shyly the step which this strange girl took away from them. “We never were in a house like this before. We do not belong to great people. Mrs Edgerley asked us to come, because we met her at Mr Burlington’s, and she has been very kind, but we know no one. Pray, do not go away.” The thoughtful eyes brightened into a sudden gleam. “We are called Atheling,” said Marian, interposing in her turn. “My sister is Agnes, and I am Marian--and you Miss----” “My name is Rachel,” said their new friend, with a sudden and violent blush, making all her face crimson. “I have no other--call me so, and I will like it. You think I am of your age; but I am not like you--you do not know half so much as I know.” “No--that is very likely,” said Agnes, somewhat puzzled; “but I think you do not mean education,” said the young author immediately, seeing Marian somewhat disposed to resent on her behalf this broad assertion. “You mean distress and sorrow. But we have had a great deal of grief at home. We have lost dear little children, one after another. We are not ignorant of grief.” Rachel looked at them with strange observation, wonder, and uncertainty. “But you are ignorant of me--and I am ignorant of you,” she said slowly, pausing between her words. “I suppose you mean just what you say, do you? and I am not much used to that. Do you know what I am here for?--only to sing and amuse the people--and you still want to make friends with me!” “Mrs Edgerley said you were to be a singer, but you did not like it,” said Marian; “and I think you are very right.”