The Children of the Castle. Molesworth Mrs.

except in one corner, the corner by the west window. There, there was a soft steady light, and it seemed to me that it was on purpose to make me look that way. For there, sitting on the old chair that still stands in the depth of that window was some one I had never seen before. A lady in a cloudy silvery dress, with a sheen of blue over it. My waking, or looking at her, for though it must all have been a dream, I could not make you understand it unless I described it as if it were real, seemed to be made conscious to her, for she at once turned her eyes upon me, then rose slowly and came over the room towards me.”

      “Weren’t you frightened?” said Ruby breathlessly. In spite of her boasted disbelief in dreams and visions her cousin’s story had caught her attention. Miss Hortensia shook her head.

      “Not in the very least,” she said. “On the contrary, I felt a strange and delightful kind of pleasure and wonder. It was more intense than I have ever felt anything of the kind in waking life; indeed, if it had lasted long I think it would have been more than I could bear – ” Miss Hortensia stopped for a moment and leant back in her chair. “I have felt something of the same,” she went on, “when listening to very, very beautiful music – music that seemed too beautiful and made you almost cry out for it to stop.”

      “I’ve never heard music like that,” whispered little Mavis, “but I think I know what you mean.”

      “Or,” continued Miss Hortensia, “sometimes on a marvellously beautiful day – what people call a ‘heavenly’ day, I have had a feeling rather like it. A feeling that makes one shut one’s eyes for very pleasure.”

      “Well,” said Ruby, “did you shut your eyes then, or what did you do?”

      “No,” said her cousin. “I could not have shut them. I felt she was looking at me, and her eyes seemed to catch and fasten mine and draw them into hers. It was her eyes above all that filled me with that beautiful wonderful feeling. I can never forget it – never. I could fancy sometimes even now, old woman as I am, that I am again the little enraptured child gazing up at the beautiful vision. I feel her eyes in mine still.”