These, and many other indications of the festivity then going on within, Mary rapidly noticed; but it was evident, from the increasing eagerness of her gaze, that the object which she sought had not yet met her eye. Suddenly, however, the door of the kitchen opened and a figure entered, on which the young girl bent all her attention. It was Joan Landy, but how different from the half-timid, half-reckless peasant girl that last we saw her! Dressed in a heavy gown of white satin, looped up on either side with wreaths of flowers, and wearing a rich lace cap on her head, she rushed hurriedly in, her face deeply flushed, and her eyes sparkling with excitement. Hastily snatching up a check apron that lay on a chair, she fastened it about her, and drew near the fire. It was plain from her gesture, as she took the ladle from the old woman's hand, that she was angry, and by her manner seemed as if rebuking her. The old crone, however, only crouched lower, and spreading out her wasted fingers towards the blaze, appeared insensible to everything addressed to her. Meanwhile Joan busied herself about the fire with all the zealous activity of one accustomed to the task. Mary watched her intently; she scrutinized with piercing keenness every lineament of that face, now moved by its passing emotions, and she muttered to herself, “Alas, I have come in vain!” Nor was this depressing sentiment less felt as Joan, turning from the fire, approached a fragment of a broken looking-glass that stood against the wall. Drawing herself up to her full height, she stood gazing proudly, delightedly, at her own figure. The humble apron, too, was speedily discarded, and as she trampled it beneath her feet she seemed to spurn the mean condition of which it was the symbol. Mary Martin sighed deeply as she looked, and muttered once more, “In vain!” Then suddenly starting, with one of those bursts of energy which so often had steeled her heart against peril, she walked to the kitchen-door, raised the latch, and entered. She had made but one step within the door when Joan turned and beheld her; and there they both stood, silently, each surveying the other. Mary felt too intensely the difficulty of the task before her to utter a word without well weighing the consequences. She knew how the merest accident might frustrate all she had in view, and stood hesitating and uncertain, when Joan, who now recognized her, vacillated between her instinctive sense of respect and a feeling of defiance in the consciousness of where she was. Happily for Mary the former sentiment prevailed, and in a tone of kindly anxiety Joan drew near her and said,--“Has anything happened? I trust in God no accident has befell you.” “Thank God, nothing worse than a wetting,” said Mary,--“some little fatigue; and I'll think but little of either if they have brought me here to a good end. May I speak with you alone,--quite alone?”