With the same freedom as of old, I went and came to and from Mr. Argyll's. I was not apprehensive of intruding upon Eleanor, because she never left her apartments; while Mary, gay young creature, troubled and grieved as she was, could not stay always in the shadow. At her age, the budding blooms of womanhood require sunshine. She was lonely, and when she left her sister to the solitude which Eleanor preferred, she wanted company, she said. James was gloomy, and would not try to amuse her--not that she wanted to be amused, but every thing was so sad, and she felt so timid, it was a relief to have any one to talk to, or even to look at. I felt very sorry for her. It became a part of my duty to bring her books, and sometimes to read them aloud, through the lengthening evenings; at others to while away the time with a game of chess. The piano was abandoned out of respect for the mourner in the chamber above. Carols would rise to Mary's lips, as they rise from a lark at sunrise, but she always broke them off, drowning them in sighs. Her elastic spirit constantly asserted itself, while the tender sympathy of a most warm, affectionate nature as constantly depressed it. She could not speak of Eleanor without tears; and for this my heart blessed her. She did not know of the choking in my own throat which often prevented me from speaking, when I ought, perhaps, to be uttering words of help or comfort. James was always hovering about like a restless spirit. It had been one of his indolent habits to spend a great deal of time with the young ladies; and now he was forever in the house; but so uneasy, so irritable--as Mary said--he was not an agreeable companion. He would pick up a book in the library; in five minutes he would throw it down, and walk twice or thrice up and down the hall, out upon the piazza, back into the parlor, and stand looking out of the windows--then to the library and take up another book. He had the air of one always listening--always waiting. He had, too, a kind of haunted look, if my reader can imagine what that is. I guessed that he was listening and waiting for Eleanor--whom, like myself, he had not seen since the Sunday so memorable; but the other look I did not seek to explain.