A tear stood in Rosalind's bright eye as she said this, and Helen felt very heartily ashamed of the petulance with which she had spoken. As a penance for it, she would not utter the sad prognostic that rose to her lips, as to the impossibility that any thing could give her power to bestow the freedom she might herself obtain. Their return seemed to be unnoticed by every individual of the family except Henrietta. She saw the carriage approach from her own room, and continued to waylay Rosalind as she passed to hers. "I know the sight of me must be hateful to you Miss Torrington," she said, "and I have been looking out for you in order that the shock of first seeing me might be over at once. Poor, pretty Helen Mowbray!--notwithstanding the hardness of heart on which I pique myself, I cannot help feeling for her. How does she bear it, Miss Torrington?" "She is very unhappy, Henrietta: and I think it is your duty, as well as mine, to make her feel her altered home as little miserable as possible." "I should think so too, if I believed I had any power to make it better or worse,--except, indeed, that of meeting her eyes, or avoiding them. The sight of any of us must be dreadful to her." "You have such a remarkable way of shutting yourself up--your intellectual self I mean, from every one, that it is not very easy to say how great or how little your power might be. From the slight and transient glances which you have sometimes permitted me to take through your icy casing, I am rather inclined to believe that you ought to reckon for something in the family of which you make a part." Henrietta shook her head. "Your glances have not penetrated to the centre yet, Miss Torrington. Should you ever do so, you, and your friend Helen too, would hate me,--even if my name were not Cartwright." "I would not hear your enemy say so," replied Rosalind. "However, we are now likely to be enough together to judge each other by the severest of all tests, daily experience." "An excellent test for the temper,--but not for the heart," replied Henrietta. "You seem determined to make me afraid of you, Miss Cartwright. I have no great experience of human nature as yet; but I should think a corrupt heart would rather seek to conceal than proclaim itself." "I think you are right; but I have no idea that my heart is corrupt:--it is diseased." "I wish I could heal it," said Rosalind kindly, "for I suspect its illness, be it what it may, causes your cheek to grow pale. You do not look well, Miss Cartwright." "Well?--Oh no! I have long known I am dying." "Good Heaven!--what do you mean? Why do you not take advice?" "Because no advice could save me;--and because if it could, I would not take it." "I hope you are not in earnest. Perhaps this strange marriage, if it do no other good, may benefit your health by placing you in a larger family. I cannot think you are happy at the Vicarage." "Indeed!" replied Henrietta with a melancholy smile.