keep you as our servant."

"Thank you ma'am. Thank you, Miss Hilary. Yes, I'll stop."

She said no more--but sighed a great sigh, as if her mind were
relieved--("So," thought Hilary, "she was not so indifferent to us as
we imagined")--and bustled back into her kitchen.

"Now for the clothing of her," observed Miss Leaf, also looking much
relieved that the decision was over. "You know what we agreed upon;
and there is certainly no time to be lost. Hilary, my dear, suppose
you bring down your brown merino?" Hilary went without a word.

People who inhabit the same house, eat, sit, and sleep
together--loving one another and sympathizing with one another, ever
so deeply and dearly--nevertheless inevitably have momentary seasons
when the intense solitude in which we all live, and must expect ever
to live, at the depth of our being, forces itself painfully upon the
heart. Johanna must have had many such seasons when Hilary was a
child; Hilary had one now.

She unfolded the old frock, and took out of its pocket, a hiding
place at once little likely to be searched, and harmless if
discovered, a poor little memento of that happy midsummer day.

"Dear Miss Hilary. To-morrow, then, I shall come.
Yours truly, Robert Lyon."

The only scrap of note she had ever received; he always wrote to
Johanna; as regularly as ever, or more so, now Ascott was gone; but