“The bees! oh, Elsie! they have gone to the woods,” said the old man, in a voice of touching apology. “We did not kill them; we never gathered an ounce of their honey. You do not mind that they are gone, Elsie dear?” “Oh,” answered Elsie, wearily, as if the effort to remember had exhausted her,—“gone, are they? what for? why did they go? How everything slides, slides, slides away, and I keep running after, forever and forever running after. Oh! I am tired.” The old people looked at one another, and at Catharine, hopefully. “Let her rest,” said Catharine, in a gentle whisper. “Perhaps it may end better than we think!” “Yes,” said the old man, stealthily clasping the withered hand of his wife. “Let us watch. She may wander back to her youth again, and forget all that has passed.” “It may be so—God help the poor child—it may be so,” murmured the old lady, casting looks of wistful tenderness across the table, while her daughter began to eat daintily, putting on airs like a child entrusted with a fork for the first time. It was remarkable that the old lady never spoke of her daughter, though an elderly woman with waves of gray in her hair, except as “the child,” or “the dear young creature.” To her, those white hairs had no significance of age, but were the marks of a deep sorrow, over which the mother’s heart mourned perpetually. The breakfast was finished in silence. Catharine, usually so attentive to every movement of her charge, sat preoccupied and thoughtful. The old people dropped back into their habitual calm, and Elsie still amused herself by arranging and re-arranging the folds of her robe, claiming admiration for the effect, by child-like glances at her mother. Perhaps they were right; the woman certainly did seem to be going back to her childishness again. CHAPTER XXXIX. THE TWO PORTRAITS. When Catharine arose to go, Elsie, following out the wilful instincts of her new character, crept close to old Mrs. Ford, and clung to her dress, entreating to be left; which flung the old couple into a state of absolute delight beautiful to behold. It was the first time their child had been content to remain alone with them since her sojourn in the house. Now she clung pleadingly to her mother’s dress, and, seating herself upon a low stool at her feet, began to amuse herself by arranging scraps of silk, which she found in her mother’s work-basket, with great nicety as to the colors, which made the old people look at each other with mournful smiles; it put them so in mind of old times, when she was indeed a child, body and mind.