framed by the white folds of the handkerchief
which she had tied under her chin—passed by us
in the moonlight. Once more, Miss Halcombe
waited till she was out of sight; and then went
on:

"'I have taken a violent fancy, Philip, to my
new scholar, for a reason which I mean to keep
till the last for the sake of surprising you. Her
mother having told me as little about the child as
she told me of herself, I was left to discover
(which I did on the first day when we tried her
at lessons) that the poor little thing's intellect
is not developed as it ought to be at her age.
Seeing this, I had her up to the house the next
day, and privately arranged with the doctor to
come and watch her and question her, and tell
me what he thought. His opinion is that she
will grow out of it. But he says her careful
bringing-up at school is a matter of great importance
just now, because her unusual slowness in
acquiring ideas implies an unusual tenacity in
keeping them, when they are once received into
her mind. Now, my love, you must not imagine,
in your off-hand way, that I have been attaching
myself to an idiot. This poor little Anne
Catherick is a sweet, affectionate, grateful girl;
and says the quaintest, prettiest things (as you
shall judge by an instance), in the most oddly
sudden, surprised, half-frightened way.
Although she is dressed very neatly, her clothes
show a sad want of taste in colour and pattern.
So I arranged, yesterday, that some of our darling
Laura's old white frocks and white hats should be
altered for Anne Catherick; explaining to her
that little girls of her complexion looked neater
and better in all white than in anything else. She
hesitated and seemed puzzled for a minute; then
flushed up, and appeared to understand. Her
little hand clasped mine, suddenly. She kissed
it, Philip; and said (oh, so earnestly!), "I will
always wear white as long as I live. It
will help me to remember you, ma'am, and to
think that I am pleasing you still, when I go
away and see you no more." This is only one
specimen of the quaint things she says so
prettily. Poor little soul! She shall have a
stock of white frocks, made with good deep
tucks, to let out for her as she grows—'"

Miss Halcombe paused, and looked at me
across the piano.

"Did the forlorn woman whom you met in the
high road seem young?" she asked. "Young
enough to be two or three-and-twenty?"

"Yes, Miss Halcombe, as young as that."

"And she was strangely dressed, from head
to foot, all in white?"

"All in white."

While the answer was passing my lips, Miss
Fairlie glided into view on the terrace, for the
third time. Instead of proceeding on her walk,
she stopped, with her back turned towards us;
and, leaning on the balustrade of the terrace,
looked down into the garden beyond. My eyes
fixed upon the white gleam of her muslin gown
and head-dress in the moonlight, and a sensation,
for which I can find no name—a sensation
that quickened my pulse, and raised a
fluttering at my heart—began to steal over me.

"All in white!" Miss Halcombe repeated.
"The most important sentences in the letter,
Mr. Hartright, are those at the end, which I
will read to you immediately. But I can't help
dwelling a little upon the coincidence of the
white costume of the woman you met, and the
white frocks which produced that strange answer
from my mother's little scholar. The doctor
may have been wrong when he discovered the
child's defects of intellect, and predicted that
she would 'grow out of them.' She may never
have grown out of them; and the old grateful
fancy about dressing in white, which was a
serious feeling to the girl, may be a serious feeling
to the woman still."

I said a few words in answer—I hardly know
what. All my attention was concentrated on
the white gleam of Miss Fairlie's muslin dress.

"Listen to the last sentences of the letter,"
said Miss Halcombe. "I think they will
surprise you."

As she raised the letter to the light of the
candle, Miss Fairlie turned from the balustrade,
looked doubtfully up and down the terrace,
advanced a step towards the glass doors, and
then stopped, facing us.

Meanwhile, Miss Halcombe read me the
last sentences to which she had referred:

"'And now, my love, seeing that I am at the
end of my paper, now for the real reason, the
surprising reason, for my fondness for little
Anne Catherick. My dear Philip, although she
is not half so pretty, she is, nevertheless, by one
of those extraordinary caprices of accidental
resemblance which one sometimes sees, the
living likeness, in her hair, her complexion, the
colour of her eyes, and the shape of her
face——'"

I started up from the ottoman, before Miss
Halcombe could pronounce the next words. A
thrill of the same feeling which ran through me
when the touch was laid upon my shoulder on
the lonely high-road, chilled me again.

There stood Miss Fairlie, a white figure, alone
in the moonlight; in her attitude, in the turn of
her head, in her complexion, in the shape of her
face, the living image, at that distance and
under those circumstances, of the woman in
white! The doubt which had troubled my
mind for hours and hours past, flashed into
conviction in an instant. That "something wanting"
was my own recognition of the ominous
likeness between the fugitive from the asylum
and the heiress of Limmeridge House.

"You see it!" said Miss Halcombe. She
dropped the useless letter, and her eyes flashed
as they met mine. "You see it now, as my
mother saw it eleven years since!"

"I see it—more unwillingly than I can say.
To associate that forlorn, friendless, lost woman,
even by an accidental likeness only, with Miss
Fairlie, seems like casting a shadow on the
future of the bright, creature who stands looking