would have discerned that she had surrendered all rights in order to
grasp more effectively at all the privileges. She was clinging and small
and delicate and her eyes, her features, her plaintive gestures, united
in an irresistible appeal to emotions.

"Where is Jonathan?" she asked, "I hoped he would welcome me."

"So I do, dearest mother--so I do," replied the young man, running
hurriedly down the steps and then slipping his arm about her. "You came
a minute or two earlier than I expected you, or I should have met you in
the drive."

Half supporting, half carrying her, he led the way into the house and
placed her on a sofa in the long drawing-room.

"I am afraid the journey has been too much for you," he said tenderly.
"Shall I tell Abednego to bring you a glass of wine."

"Kesiah will mix me an egg and a spoonful of sherry, dear, she knows
just how much is good for me."

Kesiah, still grasping her small black bag, went into the dining-room
and returned, bearing a beaten egg, which she handed to her sister.
In her walk there was the rigid austerity of a saint who has adopted
saintliness not from inclination, but from the force of a necessity
against which rebellion has been in vain. Her plain, prominent features
wore, from habit, a look of sullen martyrdom that belied her natural
kindness of heart; and even her false brown front was arranged in
little hard, flat curls, as though an artificial ugliness were less
reprehensible in her sight than an artificial beauty.