He had become acquainted during his college life, he told her, with a widow and her daughter, who lived about four or five miles from Oxford. Some service he had rendered them, of sufficient importance as to make him an ever welcome and acceptable guest within the precincts of that cottage, which proclaimed a refined and elevated taste, although its inmates were not of the highest class. Both Percy fancied were widows, although he scarcely knew the foundation of that fancy, except the circumstance of their living together, and the husband of the younger lady never appearing; nor was his name ever mentioned in the confidential conversations he sometimes had with them, which the service he had had in his power to do demanded. Mrs. Amesfort, the daughter, still possessed great beauty, which a shade of pensive thought, sometimes amounting to deep melancholy, rendered even more lovely. Her age might have been six or seven and twenty, she could not have been more. At an earlier age, there was still evidence that she had been a sparkling, lively girl, and her mother would frequently relate to the young man the change that sorrow--and sorrow, she hinted, of a peculiarly painful nature--had made in one who, ten years previous, had been so full of life and glee. Decline, slow but sure, it seemed even to Percy's inexperienced eye, was marked on her pale features; and at those times when bodily suffering was greatest, her spirit would resume a portion of its former lightness, as if it rejoiced in the anticipated release. There was a deep thrilling melody in her voice, whether in speaking or, when strength allowed, in warbling forth the pathetic airs of her native land; for Agnes Amesfort was a child of Erin, once enthusiastic, warm, devoted, as were her countrywomen--possessing feelings that even beneath that pale, calm exterior would sometimes burst forth and tinge her cheek, and light up her soul-speaking eye with momentary but brilliant radiance, and whispered too clearly what she had once been, and what was now the wreck.