'This election frightens me, Radie--everything frightens me now--but this is _so_ audacious. If there be powers either in heaven or hell, it seems like a defiance and an invocation. I am glad you are here, Radie--I have grown so nervous--so superstitious, I believe; watching always for signs and omens. Oh, darling, the world's ghastly for me now.' 'I wish, Dorcas, we were away--as you used to say--in some wild and solitary retreat, living together--two recluses--but all that is visionary--quite visionary now.' Dorcas sighed. 'You know, Rachel, the world must not see this--we will carry our heads high. Wicked men, and brave and suffering women--that is the history of our family--and men and women always quite unlike the rest of the world--unlike the human race; and somehow they interest me unspeakably. I wish I knew more about those proud, forlorn beauties, whose portraits are fading on the walls. Their spirit, I am sure, is in us, Rachel; and their pictures and traditions have always supported me. When I was a little thing, I used to look at them with a feeling of melancholy and mystery. They were in my eyes, reserved prophetesses, who could speak, if they would, of my own future.' 'A poor support, Dorcas--a broken reed. I wish we could find another--the true one, in the present, and in the coming time.' Dorcas smiled faintly, and I think there was a little gleam of a ghastly satire in it. I am afraid that part of her education which deals with futurity had been neglected. 'I am more likely to turn into a Lady Macbeth than a _devote_,' said she, coldly, with the same painful smile. 'I found myself last night sitting up in my bed, talking in the dark about it.' There was a silence for a time, and Rachel said,-- 'It is growing late, Dorcas.' 'But you must not go, Rachel--you _must_ stay and keep me company--you must, _indeed_, Radie,' said Dorcas. 'So I will,' she answered; 'but I must send a line to old Tamar; and I promised Dolly to go down to her to-night, if that darling little boy should be worse--I am very unhappy about him.' 'And is he in danger, the handsome little fellow?' said Dorcas. 'Very great danger, I fear,' said Rachel. 'Doctor Buddle has been very kind--but he is, I am afraid, more desponding than poor William or Dolly imagines--Heaven help them!' 'But children recover wonderfully. What is his ailment?' 'Gastric fever, the doctor says. I had a foreboding of evil the moment I saw him--before the poor little man was put to his bed.' Dorcas rang the bell.