I afterwards learned from the old housekeeper—who was very friendly, and used to sit with me sometimes of an evening when I invited her—that Lady Alice’s position in the family was a very peculiar one. Distantly connected with Lord Hilton’s family on the mother’s side, she was the daughter of the late Lord Glendarroch, and step-daughter to Lady Hilton, who had become Lady Hilton within a year after Lord Glendarroch’s death. Lady Alice, then quite a child, had accompanied her step-mother, to whom she was moderately attached, and who, perhaps, from the peculiarities of Lady Alice’s mind and disposition, had been allowed to retain undisputed possession of her. Probably, however, she had no near relatives, else the fortune reported to be at her disposal would most likely have roused contending claims to the right of guardianship. Although in many respects very kindly treated by her step-mother, the peculiarities to which I have already referred tended to an isolation from the family engagements and pleasures. Lady Alice had no accomplishments, and never could be taught any. She could neither sing, nor play, nor draw, nor dance. As for languages, she could neither spell, nor even read aloud, her own. Yet she seemed to delight in reading to herself, though, for the most part, what Mrs. Wilson characterized as very odd books. I knew her voice, when she spoke, had a quite indescribable music in it; and her habitual motion was more like a rhythmical gliding than an ordinary walk. Mrs. Wilson hinted at other and even more serious peculiarities, which she either could not, or would not describe; always shaking her head gravely and sadly, and becoming quite silent when I pressed her for further explanation; so that, at last, I gave up all attempts to arrive at an understanding of the mystery, at least by her means. I could not, however, avoid speculating on the subject myself. One thing soon became evident to me: that she was considered by her family to be not merely deficient in the power of intellectual acquirement, but to be—intellectually considered—in a quite abnormal condition. Of this, however, I could see no signs: though there was a peculiarity, almost oddity in some of her remarks, which was evidently not only misunderstood, but misinterpreted with relation to her mental state. Such remarks Lady Hilton generally answered by an elongation of the lips intended to represent a smile. To me, they appeared to indicate a nature closely allied to genius, if not identical with it—a power of regarding things from an original point of view, which perhaps was the more unfettered in its operation from the fact that it was impossible for her to look at them in the ordinary commonplace way. It seemed to me sometimes as if her point of observation was outside of the sphere within which the thing observed took place; and as if what she said had sometimes a relation to things and thoughts and mental