that, while with her usual unselfishness, she strove to promote the
happiness of others by entering cheerfully into conversation, from the
half suppressed sigh, and the shadow that at intervals stole over her
face, some painful subject, very foreign from the scene around, occupied
her thoughts.

"I am afraid you are not well to-night, Miss Wiltshire," he at length
said, in a tone low and gentle as a woman's, for Agnes, seated on a
corner of the sofa, and imagining herself unobserved by the rest of the
company, had for a moment closed her eyes, as though to shut out
surrounding objects, while an expression of mental anguish flitted
across her features.

How precious to the aching heart is human sympathy. The words were
nothing in themselves, but the tenderness of tone in which they were
spoken, told plainly that it was anything but a matter of indifference
to the speaker, and Agnes, blushing deeply as she met Arthur's
compassionate glance, felt the conviction, darting like a ray of sunbeam
through her mind, that to at least one person in the world she was
dearer than aught else beside.

"I have only a slight headache," was her reply to his kind inquiry, and
one which was strictly correct, for the headache was the result of
mental agitation during the day.

"I shall recommend you, then, to sit quite still, while I constitute
myself, for the evening, your devoted knight; and shall, therefore,
remain here, ready to obey your slightest behests, be they what they
may."