friends, who, suddenly meeting her, would remark that she wasn't looking
half the girl she used to be.

She had already begun to remark it herself, as with her bare arms she
would coil up her hair, standing before her mirror; and she thought
nothing of it till one day, as she stood there, she noticed a curious
expression flash into her face and go again almost before she could mark
it. Her face, which had always been round and plump, seemed suddenly to
gaze back at her, very narrow and pinched and white, strangely sunken,
too, and rigid. It was all a mere flash and gone again, and her real
face was presently back once more. But the look filled her with solemn
thoughts, in which she was surprised to find a certain comfort, as of a
sad wish fulfilling itself.

She spoke to no one of that look, but it must have been the same look
that Theophil saw, a few nights after, as she sat listening to him
reading in her usual chair. Suddenly, as he looked up at her, he threw
down the book, and with concern, almost terror, in his voice, exclaimed,
"Good God, Jenny! are you ill, dear? What is that terrible white look in
your face?"

He sprang across and took her hands. The look had gone again before he
had finished speaking, but it was a look he was never to forget.

One day Jenny put out her arm, and asked him to feel how thin it was
growing.

"It _is_ thin, dear; but you mustn't be anxious. Perhaps you're a trifle
run down. You must see the doctor."