was the last, last look I ever had of her; the last manner in which she appeared to me. It was a horrid sight! Yet when I thought of her today as really dying, it was a kind of comfort to me to imagine that I knew exactly how she would appear to those, who saw her last in this world. She was before me, constantly before me, as I travelled, in the same look and hue.”

A short pause of mutual thoughtfulness succeeded. Willoughby first rousing himself, broke it thus:⁠—

“Well, let me make haste and be gone. Your sister is certainly better, certainly out of danger?”

“We are assured of it.”

“Your poor mother, too! doting on Marianne.”

“But the letter, Mr. Willoughby, your own letter; have you anything to say about that?”