side of the house which faced the
marsh. Here the grass grew untrimmed and rank up to the very walls;
and, as I made my way through it, my feet sank from time to time into
little unseen pools and swamps, which wetted them up to the ankles
after a few steps. However, I went on as carefully as I could, past a
tangle of shrubs, yew-trees, and straggling briers, until, pushing
aside the low-hanging branches of a barberry-tree, I found myself
within a few feet of a window so heavily shaded by gnarled and knotted
ivy that for a few moments I did not notice a woman’s face staring at
me intently through the glass. As soon as I caught sight of the sunken
face and large lustreless gray eyes, I knew, by her likeness to the
child at the pond, that this was Mrs. Rayner. I retreated in as
leisurely a manner as I could, trying to look as if I had not seen
her; for there was something in the eager, hopeless stare of her eyes
as mine met them which made me feel like a spy.

I crept back into the house and up to my room, unpacked my boxes, and
sat down to write to my mother an account of my journey and arrival. I
did not tell her quite all that I had seen, or all the strange
impressions this first evening had made upon me. I felt very anxious
to communicate them to somebody; but my mother was a gentle nervous
woman, whom I had already, young as I was, learned to lead rather than
be led by; I knew that the least suggestion of mystery would cause her
an agony of doubt and anxiety about her child which I could not allay
by letter; so I contented myself with a description of the picturesque
beauty of the place and of Mr. Rayner’s kindness. I had to finish this
by candle-light, and, when I had ended, I rose and went to the window
to give one more look at the scene under a new aspect. My window, I
afterwards found, was over the one at which I had seen Mrs. Rayner’s
face; it was high enough from the ground for me to have, through the
gaps between the trees, a good view of the marsh and the hills beyond.

A low cry of admiration burst from me as I looked out. Over all the
wide expanse of marsh, which seemed to stretch for miles on either
hand, lay a white mist, rising only a few feet from the ground, but so
thick as to look like a silver lake in the moonlight; a range of hills
two or three miles off seemed to mark the opposite shore. The mist was
dense under my window, too, on the very grass that I had waded through
a couple of hours before. As I looked out and tried to imagine little
fairy boats in the elders which rose here and there out of the

 Prev. P 7/247 next