nut-shells, like the sun, like the moon, and like the stars. Even Sir Walter, burly, and sturdy, and noisy, and substantial as he was, seemed to me to acquire a kind of reflected glory by her speaking to him. And her seven sons girdled her like the planets around the sun, or like the seven electors Aunt Gretel told us about around the emperor. But when at last her eyes rested on me, and she whispered something to Sir Walter, and he came across and doffed his plumed hat to my father, and then led me across to her, and she looked long in my face, and then up in my father's, and said, "The likeness is perfect," and then kissed me, and made me sit down on the cushion beside her with her hand in mine, I thought her voice like an angel's, and her touch seemed to me to have something hallowing in it which made me feel safe like a little bird under its mother's wing. The silent smile of her soft eyes under her smooth, broad, unfurrowed brow, as she turned every now and then and looked at me, fell on my heart like a kiss. And I thought no more of Eve and the serpent, or Aunt Dorothy, or anything, until she rose to go. And then she kissed me again. But I scarcely seemed to care that she should kiss me. Her presence was an embrace; her smile was a kiss; every tone of her voice was a caress. A tender motherliness seemed to fold me all round as I sat by her. As she left me she said softly,-- "Little Olive, you must come and see me. Your mother and I loved each other." Then holding out her hand to my father, she added,-- "Politics and land-boundaries, Mr. Drayton, must not keep us any longer apart." He bowed, and they conversed some time longer; but the only thing I heard was that he promised I should go and see her at the Hall. I think every one felt something of the soft charm there was in her. For, quiet and retiring as she was, when she left, a light and gladness seemed to go with her. Before long the dancing and singing stopped, the tables were set on the green, and the feasting began, and we left and went home. "Oh, Roger," said I, when we were alone that evening, "there can be no one like her in the world." "Of course not," said Roger decisively. "Did I not always say so?" "But you never saw her before." "Never saw her, Olive? How can I help seeing her every Sunday? She sits at the end of the pew just opposite mine." "She never came to church, Roger." "Never came to church? Who do you mean?" "Mean? The Lady Lucy, to be sure." "Oh," said Roger, "I thought, of course, you were speaking of Mistress Lettice." But when we came back to Netherby, full as my heart was of my new love, there was something in Aunt Dorothy's manner that quite froze any utterance of it, and brought me back to Eve and the apple. Yet she spoke kindly,--