As she approached the house, Elsie, for it was she, slackened her pace, and began to caress the child with a gentle sweetness that soon dispelled his terror. The words fell from her lips with a sort of charm. He began to wonder, rather than fear. “Hush, now hush, don’t speak a word, little Georgie; don’t breathe loud, that’s a dear. There, there!” She pressed his cheek to hers, whispering these cautions softly, and stole through the lilac and snow-ball thickets into the house. She glided, with ghost-like stillness, through the hall, and through a long, dark passage, into the library. The shutters had been left open, and the room was filled with moonlight. It came through the bay-window in a silvery flood, leaving but few shadows, and lying full and broad upon the two pictures. A great easy-chair stood in the centre of the room, and in this she placed the child, still holding both arms around him, while she crouched half upon her knees to the floor. “See, see! the boy comes willingly; he wishes to come; he loves me, and will stay forever and ever. Oh! ha! smile and smile; you cannot get him away again; he is mine, I tell you, all mine!” As she spoke, Elsie fell to caressing the boy, stilling his fears with the mesmerism of a strong though disturbed volition, till at last he wound his arms about her neck, and fell asleep, with his head bent forward upon her bosom. Softly the poor, demented woman drew him down to her side upon the floor, and making a couch of the cushions which she took from the chair, she covered him with the great crimson shawl worn over her loose, white robe. Thus resting upon one elbow, and brooding over the child, as a thousand sweet feelings settled upon her face in the moonlight, she lay till daybreak, watchful and silent, triumphing in her soul over the two portraits that were to her human beings over whom she had attained a conquest. CHAPTER XLVI. THE MANIAC AND THE CHILD. Meantime the mother and Catharine had exhausted themselves in searching for the child. Mutual anxiety had drawn them together, as months of common acquaintance could not have done. When they returned to the house after midnight, in order to send the servants out to continue the search, they found the old people up, and in a state of painful excitement. Elsie, who had left them as they supposed, to go to her room, had mysteriously disappeared. Here was a new source of alarm. Never before had Elsie been known to leave the house after dark. What could have led her forth? And where had she fled to? Again they all sallied out, the old people and the two young women, followed by the servants; but all in vain. At daylight they returned home, weary and sorrowful, filled with dread that something fatal had happened to these helpless creatures, so loved and so strangely lost.