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repeat why do it?”
    â€œAnd again I reply, how can I help it?”
    I was silent. I was looking in the eyes of the beautiful being before me for a single trace of the madness I had been told of, but I could not find it. It was a lovely girl, pale and delicate from confinement, and with a manner that told of a weariness endured at least patiently. She was about twenty years old, perhaps, and the most perfect creature, I have already said, that I had ever beheld; and so we sat looking into each other’s, eyes; what mine expressed I cannot say, but hers were purity, and sweetness itself.
    â€œWho are you?” she asked, suddenly, “tell me something of yourself. It will be at least a change from this white solitude.”
    â€œI am a doctor, as you have guessed; and a rich and fashionable doctor,” I added smilingly.
    â€œTo be either is to be also the other,” she remarked, “you need not have used the repetition.”
    â€œCome,” I thought to myself, “there is little appearance of lunacy in that observation.”
    â€œBut you doubtless have name, what is it?”
    â€œMy name is Elveston—Doctor Elveston.”
    â€œYour christian name?”
    â€œNo, my christian name is Charles.”
    â€œCharles,” she repeated dreamily.
    â€œI think it is your turn now,” I remarked, “it is but fair that you should make me acquainted with your name, since I have told you mine.”
    â€œOh! my name is d’Alberville—Blanche d’Alberville. Perhaps it was in consequence of my christian name that my poor uncle decided upon burying me in white,” she added, with a look round the cold room, “poor old man!”
    â€œWhy do you pity him so?” I asked, “he seems to me little to require it. He is strong and rich, and the uncle of Blanche,” I added, with a bow; but the compliment seemed to glide off her as if it had been a liquid, and she were made of glassy marble like one of the statues that stood behind her.
    â€œAnd you are a physician,” she said, looking wonderingly at me, “and have been in the Duke’s company, without discovering it?”
    â€œDiscovering what, my dear young lady?”
    â€œThat he is mad.”
    â€œMad!” How often had I already ejaculated that word since I had become interested in this singular household; but this time it must assuredly have expressed the utmost astonishment, for I was never more confounded in my life; and yet a light seemed to be breaking in upon my bewilderment, and I stared in wondering silence at the calm face of the lovely maiden before me.
    â€œAlas, yes!” she replied, sadly, to my look, “my poor uncle is a maniac, but a harmless one to all but me; it is I who suffer all.”
    â€œAnd why you?” I gasped.
    â€œBecause it is his mania to believe me mad,” she replied, “and so he treats me.”
    â€œBut in the name of justice why should you endure this?” I cried, angrily starting to my feet, “you are in a free land at least, and doors will open!”
    â€œCalm yourself, my friend,” she said, laying her white hand on my arm, and the contact, I confess, thrilled through every nerve of my system, “compose yourself, and see things as they are; what could a young, frail girl like me do out in the world alone? and I have not a living relative but my uncle. Besides, would it be charitable to desert him and leave him to his own madness thus? Poor old man!”
    â€œYou are an angel!” I ejaculated, “and I would die for you!”
    The reader need not be told that my enthusiastic youth was at last beginning to make its way through the crust of worldly wisdom that had hitherto subdued it.
    â€œIt is not necessary that anyone should die for me; I can do that for myself, and no doubt shall ere long, die of the want of colour and air,” she said, with a sad smile.
    There is little use following