The earl's beautiful daughter was a little puzzled by his reply. She wondered if hers was the face he had seen in the water, but she dared not put the thought into words. CHAPTER XXV. Several days passed away very quietly after Leonora's first day and night at Lancaster Park. The girl stayed in the small rooms to which she was restricted quite as closely as the housekeeper could have desired. She did not even offer to go out, seeming to have tacitly resigned herself to the situation. She unpacked one of her trunks and showed Mrs. West the sketches she had promised to show her; she took out all her pretty, simple black dresses, and hung them on their pegs in the little dressing-closet her aunt assigned her. When she had nothing else to do she read or embroidered. Her aunt noted with pleasure that she was seldom idle. She did not know of the long hours Leonora spent, when alone, curled up in a big easy-chair, with her milk-white hands folded in her lap, her eyes half shut, with the dark lashes drooping against the pink cheeks, and a thoughtful, puzzled expression on the fair face. If she had seen her, Mrs. West would have wondered much what her niece was thinking about. In the meantime, the gay life of the great folks at Lancaster went on from day to day. Leonora saw no more of it, steadily declining the well-meant offers of her aunt to provide her with surreptitious peeps at it. "I do not care about it," Leonora would say, with an eloquent glance at her black dress. "Gayety only jars upon me, auntie, dear. I should like to go out in the fresh air a little; but if I can not do that, I have no desire for the rest." But Mrs. West, however willing she was, did not dare advise her niece to go out into the grounds where the guests might be encountered at any time, or even old Lady Lancaster herself. She knew that Leonora's pretty face, once seen by the guests, would excite remark. It had already won the admiration of the house-maids. These latter persons, having caught occasional glimpses of Leonora in their errands to the housekeeper's room, were disposed to be very sociable with the fair American girl; but Mrs. West put an end to their well-meant cordialities by saying, gently: "My niece would rather not be disturbed; she is in great trouble; she has recently lost her father." After that the maids did not court Leonora's society any more. They accepted her aunt's excuse good-naturedly and sympathetically, and contented themselves by talking about her among themselves, and praising her beauty, which they declared to each other was even greater than that of the young ladies who were sojourning at Lancaster--greater even than that of Lady Adela Eastwood, who, it was confidently whispered, was to be the next mistress of Lancaster Park.