speeding pinions were folded, and it looked forth, a calm, beautiful, infinite woman, from the face and form sleeping before me. I knew that she was awake, some moments before she opened her eyes. When at last those depths of darkness disclosed themselves, slowly uplifting their white cloudy portals, the same consternation she had formerly manifested, accompanied by yet greater anger, followed. “Yet again! Am I your slave, because I am weak?” She rose in the majesty of wrath, and moved towards the door. “Lady Alice, I have not touched you. I am to blame, but not as you think. Could I help longing to see you? And if the longing passed, ere I was aware, into a will that you should come, and you obeyed it, forgive me.” I hid my face in my hands, overcome by conflicting emotions. A kind of stupor came over me. When I lifted my head, she was standing by the closet-door. “I have waited,” she said, “to make a request of you.” “Do not utter it, Lady Alice. I know what it is. I give you my word--my solemn promise, if you like--that I will never do it again.” She thanked me, with a smile, and vanished. Much to my surprise, she appeared at dinner next day. No notice was taken of her, except by the younger of my pupils, who called out,-- “Hallo, Alice! Are you down?” She smiled and nodded, but did not speak. Everything went on as usual. There was no change in her behaviour, except in one point. I ventured the experiment of paying her some ordinary enough attention. She thanked me, without a trace of the scornful expression I all but expected to see upon her beautiful face. But when I addressed her about the weather, or something equally interesting, she made no reply; and Lady Hilton gave me a stare, as much as to say, “Don’t you know it’s of no use to talk to her?” Alice saw the look, and colouring to the eyes, rose, and left the room. When she had gone, Lady Hilton said to me,-- “Don’t speak to her, Mr. Campbell--it distresses her. She is very peculiar, you know.” She could not hide the scorn and dislike with which she spoke; and I could not help saying to myself, “What a different thing scorn looks on _your_ face, Lady Hilton!” for it made her positively and hatefully ugly for the moment--to my eyes, at least. After this, Alice sat down with us at all our meals, and seemed tolerably well. But, in some indescribable way, she was quite a different person from the Lady Alice who had twice awaked in my presence. To use a phrase common in describing one of weak intellect--she never seemed to be all there. There was something automatical in her movements; and a sort of frozen indifference was the prevailing expression of her countenance. When she smiled, a sweet light shone in her eyes, and she looked for the moment like the Lady Alice of my nightly dreams. But, altogether, the Lady Alice of the night, and the Lady Alice of the day, were two distinct persons. I believed that the former was the real one.