"Yes; I was about to give my name, when you were seized with this terrible fainting-fit. The governor is so much occupied just now that he could not come himself, though he was deeply interested in your condition. I assure you I really could hardly keep from embracing that dear young Lovel for his bravery in rescuing you from the foundered boat."
"Young Lovel!" repeated Barbara, quickly; "young Lovel! Is that his name?"
"Of course you could not be expected to know any thing about names; but you will remember the young man who nearly lost his own life in dragging you from the water?"
"Remember him! oh, yes."
"And the dear old minister, brother Parris, with his mild, quiet ways—to think that he should have been in Boston for the first time in years, just to help save you; it seems quite like a miracle, or a bit of the witchcraft that is so fashionable just now."
"Parris—Parris!" repeated Barbara, with a laboring breath.
"That," said Lady Phipps, "was the name of the tall gentleman; an old friend of Sir William's; indeed, the very man whose benediction made me his wife."
The hand which Barbara had again lifted to her forehead dropped slowly down; her lips looked cold and blue, but she stood up firmly, and excepting one wild glance over her shoulder, as if impelled to flee, kept her ground, though for an instant she seemed turning into a statue. After a little, she looked up with one of those gentle smiles, with which the most refined anguish seeks to clothe itself before the world, and said:
"You are very kind, my lady, and I am not ungrateful. But since I came to this land every thing seems like a dream. Indeed, my voyage itself is more like a vision than reality; in a little time I can better express myself. Will you be seated here, in the morning sunshine?—it is very pleasant, or seemed pleasant a little while ago—or would you prefer to sit in-doors? My good friends here have given me a tolerably pretty room, and will make Lady—Lady Phipps very welcome."
She spoke the lady's title with the same quick gasp that had marked her utterance before, and again the shudder ran through her form.