or Negroes; dark-coloured, strange looking
people—passed through, and Mr. Felix took
possession of Green Howe.

My father called on him after a time; and
I, as the mistress of the house, went with him.
Green Howe had been changed, as if by
magic, and we both said so together, as we
entered the iron gates that led up the broad
walk. The ruined garden was one mass of
plants, fresh and green, many of them quite
new to me; and the shrubbery, which had
been a wilderness, was restored to order. The
house looked larger than before, now that it
was so beautifully decorated; and the broken
trellis-work, which used to hang dangling
among the ivy, was matted with creeping
roses, and jasmine, which left on me the
impression of having been in flower, which was
impossible. It was a fairy palace; and we
could scarcely believe that this was the
deserted, ill-omened Green Howe. The foreign
servants, too, in Eastern dresses, covered with
rings, and necklaces, and earrings, the foreign
smells of sandal wood, and camphor, and
musk; the curtains that hung everywhere in
place of doors, some of velvet, and some of
cloth of gold; the air of luxury, such as I, a
simple country girl, had never seen before,
made such a powerful impression on me that
I felt as if carried away to some unknown
region. As we entered, Mr. Felix came to meet
us; and drawing aside a heavy curtain that
seemed all of gold and fire—for the flame-
coloured flowers danced and quivered on the
gold—he led us into an inner room, where
the darkened light, the atmosphere heavy
with perfumes, the statues, the birds like living
jewels, the magnificence of stuffs, and the
luxuriousness of arrangement overpowered
me. I felt as if I had sunk into a lethargy in
which I heard only the rich voice, and saw
only the form of our stranger host.

He was certainly very handsome; tall,
dark, yet pale as marble: his very lips were
pale; with eyes that were extremely bright,
but which had an expression behind them
that subdued me. His manners were graceful.
He was very cordial to us, and made us
stay a long time, taking us through his
grounds to see his improvements, and pointing
out here and there further alterations to
be made, all with such a disregard for local
difficulties, and for cost, that, had he been
one of the princes of the genii he could not
have talked more royally. He was more than
merely attentive to me; speaking to me often
and in a lower voice, bending down near to
me, and looking at me with eyes that thrilled
through every nerve and fibre. I saw that
my father was uneasy; and when we left, I
asked him how he liked our new neighbour.
He said, "Not much, Lizzie," with a grave
and almost displeased look, as if he had
probed the weakness I was scarcely conscious
of myself. I thougt at the time that he was
harsh.

However, as there was nothing positively
to object to in Mr. Felix, my father's impulse
of distrust could not well be indulged without
rudeness; and my dear father was too
thoroughly a gentleman ever to be rude even to
his enemy. We therefore saw a great deal of
the stranger, who established himself in our
house on the most familiar footing, and forced
on my father and Lucy an intimacy they both
disliked but could not avoid. For it was
forced with such consummate skill and tact,
that there was nothing which the most rigid
could object to.

I gradually became an altered being under
his influence. In one thing only a happier—
in the loss of the Voice and the Form which
had haunted me. Since I had known Felix
this terror had gone. The reality had
absorbed the shadow. But in nothing else was
this strange man's influence over me
beneficial. I remember that I used to hate
myself for my excessive irritability of temper
when I was away from him. Everything at
home displeased me. Everything seemed so
small and mean, and old and poor after the
lordly glory of that house; and the very
caresses of my family and olden school-day
friends were irksome and hateful to me. All
except my Lucy lost its charm; and to her I
was faithful as ever; to her I never changed.
But her influence seemed to war with his
wonderfully. When with him I felt borne
away in a torrent. His words fell upon me
mysterious and thrilling, and he gave me
fleeting glimpses into worlds which had never
opened themselves to me before; glimpses
seen and gone like the Arabian gardens.

When I came back to my sweet sister, her
pure eyes and the holy light that lay in them,
her gentle voice speaking of the sacred things
of heaven and the earnest things of life,
seemed to me like a former existence; a state
I had lived in years ago. But this divided
influence nearly killed me; it seemed to part
my very soul and wrench my being in twain;
and this more than all the rest, made me sad
beyond anything people believed possible in
one so gay and reckless as I had been.

My father's dislike to Felix increased daily;
and Lucy, who had never been known to use
a harsh word in her life, from the first
refused to believe a thought of good in him, or
to allow him one single claim to praise. She
used to cling to me in a wild, beseeching
way, and entreat me with prayers, such as a
mother might have poured out before an
erring child, to stop in time, and return to
those who loved me. "For your soul is lost
from among us, Lizzie," she used to say;
"and nothing but a frame remains of the full
life of love you once gave us!" But one word,
one look, from Felix was enough to make me
forget every tear and every prayer of her who,
until now, had been my idol and my law.

At last my dear father commanded me not
to see Felix again. I felt as if I should have
died. In vain I wept and prayed. In vain I
gave full license to my thoughts, and suffered