"Strange indeed, Letitia; but we will talk more fully in the morning," answered Miss Pengarvon, with an unwonted tremor in her voice. "It is very late now, and very cold; and we had better go back to bed." "But what if Isabel were to call again? What if she were really to want me for something?" "I will sit up and listen, and if she--if anyone should call you, I shall be there to attend to the summons." "But you will wake me, will you not, if Isabel should ask for me again?" "I promise you that I will." "Then I will go back to bed; though how you can say it is a cold night, Barbara, is more than I can think. I am all in a glow; feel at my hands." Miss Pengarvon said no more, but drew one of her sister's hot hands under her arm, and hurried her away. Miss Letitia went back to bed as obediently as a little child, and turning her face to the wall, in five minutes was fast asleep. But there was no more sleep that night for Miss Pengarvon. She made up the fire, wrapped a shawl round her shoulders, and sat there hour after hour, as upright as a mummy--and nearly as motionless--staring into the fire with unwavering eyes, and conjuring up in the glowing embers, who shall say what strange pictures of the past--pictures, some of them, which for years she had done her utmost to forget, but which the torch of memory, kindled by her sister's random words, now lighted up for her again, as vividly as though the events which they depicted were but those of yesterday. How thankfully she watched the breaking of the coming day! Then the shadows that haunt our thoughts and weigh upon our spirits during the dread watches of the night take to themselves wings, and vanish as though they had never been, before the first rays of the rising sun. Day had not yet fully broken when Miss Letitia sat up suddenly in bed. In her eyes there was a light which seemed of another world than this. Stretching forth her arms, she said, "Oh, Barbara. The baby--the baby! So cold! So cold!" They were her last words. She sighed softly, twice, and sank back on the pillows. CHAPTER XV. AFTER THE TRIAL.