Catharine was about to answer, but a glance from Elsie, who looked unusually serious and tranquil as she sat by her mother, was an unaccountable check upon her. There was no meaning in that dark, mournful look, and Catherine had encountered it a thousand times; but some unacknowledged intuition kept her silent; she could not force herself to speak of the room which she had just left. CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE FAMILY BREAKFAST. Catharine did not speak of her employment that morning. Some unaccountable restraint was upon her, and she could not force her tongue to ask the questions that were constantly forming themselves in her mind. The old people were unusually quiet and gentle. Pleasant dreams, or, what is perhaps better, innocent thoughts, had filled their souls with sweet serenity. Since their daughter had returned, imperfect in temper and intellect as she was, their home had brightened into a Paradise around them. They called the poor woman by a thousand sweet terms of endearment, as if she had been still a child, and they indulging in the first bright joys of parental life. It was beautiful to watch the holy workings of nature in those old hearts, as they sat by the breakfast-table that bright spring morning side by side, with their daughter, who was languidly reposing in an easy-chair on the opposite side of the table. In the wanderings of her intellect, she had retained exaggerated vestiges of a taste originally luxurious and imaginative. Now the dress, which had once been splendid, became picturesque, and at times fantastic, but it was always arranged with a certain effect that bespoke great original refinement. She delighted in strong contrasts, rather than incongruities of color, and invariably rejected all fabrics that were not the most delicate and costly of their kind. In a store-room overhead she had found a wardrobe that had once been fashionable and costly, and the discovery had seemed to give her inexhaustible pleasure. This morning she had arrayed herself with peculiar care. Her white muslin robe was elaborately embroidered down the front and over the bosom. She wore dainty slippers of crimson Russian leather, embossed with gold; and had tied a small lace handkerchief under her chin, which mingled softly with the profuse wealth of tresses, which she had been at great pains to train in long ringlets, evidently with some vague reminiscence of her childhood. There was nothing very fantastic in this, certainly, but the kerchief on her head, and the muslin of her robe, was of that pale yellow tinge, which nothing but time can give; and the gold upon her slippers was tarnished till it seemed like bronze.