“I don’t know, sis.  It is what Dr. Patton, the lecturer on physiognomy, would call a ‘striking’ face.”

“Yes, strikingly ugly, Dick.  Her forehead juts over, like the eaves of the kitchen, and her eyebrows—­”

“Hush! she will hear you.  Come down and play that new waltz for me, like a good sister.”  The two left the room.  Beulah had heard every word; she could not avoid it, and as she recalled Mrs. Grayson’s remark concerning her appearance on the previous day, her countenance reflected her intense mortification.  She pressed her face against the window-pane and stared vacantly out.  The elevated position commanded a fine view of the town, and on the eastern horizon the blue waters of the harbor glittered with “silvery sheen.”  At any other time, and with different emotions, Beulah’s love of the beautiful would have been particularly gratified by this extended prospect; but now the whole possessed no charms for her darkened spirit.  For the moment, earth was black-hued to her gaze; she only saw “horribly ugly” inscribed on sky and water.  Her soul seemed to leap forward and view nearer the myriad motes that floated in the haze of the future.  She leaned over the vast whirring lottery wheel of life, and saw a blank come up, with her name stamped upon it.  But the grim smile faded from her lips, and brave endurance looked out from the large, sad eyes, as she murmured,

     “Be not like dumb, driven cattle, Be a hero in the strife.”

“If I am ugly, God made me so, and I know ’He doeth all things well.’  I will not let it bother me; I will try not to think of it.  But, oh!  I am so glad, I thank God that he made my Lilly beautiful.  She will never have to suffer as I do now.  My own darling Lilly!” Large drops glistened in her eyes; she rarely wept; but though the tears did not fall, they gathered often in the gray depths.  The evening passed very quietly; Mr. Martin was absent in a distant State, whither, as traveling agent for a mercantile house, he was often called.  After tea, when little Johnny had been put to sleep in his crib, Mrs. Martin directed Annie to show the nurse her own room.  Taking a candle, the child complied, and her mother ordered one of the servants to carry up the trunk containing Beulah’s clothes.  Up, up two weary, winding flights of steps, the little Annie toiled, and, pausing at the landing of the second, pointed to a low attic chamber, lighted by dormer windows on the east and west.  The floor was uncovered; the furniture consisted of a narrow trundle-bed, a washstand, a cracked looking-glass suspended from a nail, a small deal table, and a couple of chairs.  There were, also, some hooks driven into the wall, to hang clothes upon.

“You need not be afraid to sleep here, because the boarders occupy the rooms on the floor below this; and besides, you know robbers never get up to the garret,” said Annie, glancing around the apartment, and shivering with an undefined dread, rather than with cold, though her nose and fingers were purple, and this garret chamber possessed neither stove nor chimney.