face, and the purple rims round your hollow eyes, I had almost a
difficulty to recognize my little wife in that terrified,
agonized-looking creature, crying out about the storm. Thank God for the
morning sun, which has brought back the rosy cheeks and bright smile! I
hope to Heaven, Lucy, I shall never again see you look as you did last
night."

She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and then was only tall enough to reach
his white beard. She told him, laughing, that she had always been a
silly, frightened creature--frightened of dogs, frightened of cattle,
frightened of a thunderstorm, frightened of a rough sea. "Frightened of
everything and everybody but my dear, noble, handsome husband," she
said.

She had found the carpet in her dressing-room disarranged, and had
inquired into the mystery of the secret passage. She chid Miss Alicia in
a playful, laughing way, for her boldness in introducing two great men
into my lady's rooms.

"And they had the audacity to look at my picture, Alicia," she said,
with mock indignation. "I found the baize thrown on the ground, and a
great man's glove on the carpet. Look!"

"She held up a thick driving glove as she spoke. It was George's, which
he had dropped looking at the picture.

"I shall go up to the Sun, and ask those boys to dinner," Sir Michael
said, as he left the Court upon his morning walk around his farm.

Lady Audley flitted from room to room in the bright September