about my life and intellect itself, and gave me into the hands of a
physician for many years thereof, vigorous, and healthy, and intelligent
otherwise as I felt, and seemed, and _was_.

It was soon after the first settling down of tribulation in our
household to that flat and almost unendurable calm or level that
succeeds affliction, when a void is felt rather than expressed, and when
all outward observances return to their olden habit, as a car backs
slowly from a switch to its accustomed grooves, that a new face appeared
among us, destined to influence, in no slight degree, the happiness of
all who composed the family of Reginald Monfort.

It was summer. The house in which we lived was partly finished in the
rear by wide and extensive galleries above and below, shaded by movable
_jalousies;_ and, on the upper one of these, that on which our
apartments opened, my father had caused a hammock to be swung, for the
comfort and pleasure of his children. With one foot listlessly dragging
on the floor of the portico so as to propel the hammock, and lying
partly on my face while I soothed my wide-eyed doll to sleep, I lay
swaying in childish fashion when I heard Evelyn's soft step beside me,
accompanied by another, firmer, slower, but as gentle if not as light. I
looked up: a sweet face was bending over me, framed in a simple cottage
bonnet of white straw, and braids of shining brown hair.

The eyes, large, lustrous, tender, of deepest blue, with their black
dilated pupils, I shall never forget as they first met my own, nor the
slow, sad smile that seemed to entreat my affectionate acquaintance. The
effect was immediate and electric. I sat up in the hammock, I stretched
out my hands to receive the proffered greeting, and then remained
silently, child-fashion, surveying the new-comer.