It was thus that I returned to my window-seat; when I placed myself in my favorite corner, I looped up the curtain, so that I could look in as well as out. The room was dim with that summer dimness which only the evening firelight drives away, and the mild light of the lamp shone softly in the middle of the silent apartment, throwing every piece of furniture near in shadows on the carpet, and leaving all the corners in a faint half-shade of darkness. The point of light in the room was my father's high white forehead, looking like marble with that illumination on it, and contrasting so strangely with his black hair. I looked at him as I might have looked at a picture. On one of his thin white fingers he had a ring, a very fine diamond in a slender circle of gold, which flashed and shone in the light as he raised his hand, now and then, to turn a leaf--behind him and around him there was shadow and darkness, but the light had gathered on his face, and shone there like a star to me, as I lay within the curtain looking out into the stillness: and on my other hand was the soft gloom of a summer night lying close with its downy plumes upon the trees, and the soft pale skies with a faint star in them here and there, and the lights in the college windows glowing upon youth and untried strength like mine. Rest and calm, and the mild oblivion of the night enclosed us like the arms of angels, but did not silence the swell of the rising tide in my heart. THE FOURTH DAY. It was winter again, a gloomy November day, ungenial and cold. The rain was beating on the dark buildings of the college, and saturating the dreary greensward in our garden, till it sunk under the foot like a treacherous bog. There was not a leaf on the trees, and the ivy on the high wall of the close at the other side, glistened and fluttered under the rain. There was nothing very cheerful to be seen out of doors. I was alone in our drawing-room, and it was still early, and nothing had occurred to break the morning torpor of this unbrightened day. I was sitting at the table, working with great assiduity, with scraps of my materials lying round me on every side. My occupation was not a very serious one, though I pursued it with devotion. I was only dressing a doll for a little girl, who was niece to Alice, and named after me; but as it did not consist with my ambitious desires to have a doll of my dressing arrayed like a doll which could be bought by any one, I was attiring this one in elaborate historical costume, like a lady of the age of Elizabeth, or even--so stiff and so grand was she--like that grim and glorious sovereign herself.