the three weeks that followed her visit to Upper Farm, and yet, even so,
it would not be as weary as was the treading of them to that still
ardent though fearful girl. Hers grew to be a dread that would have
seemed to a spectator disproportionate indeed--for what can one heart
know of the sickness of another's, of its hurried beating when hope
beckons, of its numb slackening when hope fails? How swift to Loveday
seemed the relentless patter of the days past her questing feet, that,
run hither and thither as she would, yet could not keep pace with Time's
urgency! How slow to Loveday seemed the ticking of each moment, since
each held hope and fear full-globed, as in bubbles that rise and rise
only to burst into the empty air! So each moment rose, rounded, to meet
Loveday, held, and broke, till her mind was but a daze which confounded
speed with slowness, till she thought the future would never be the
present and found perpetually that it was the past.

After her failure with Mrs. Lear it occurred to Loveday to go where she
should have gone in the first place--whither she might have gone had
not some irk of conscience whispered her that her purpose was all too
worldly--to the wife of the Vicar, Mrs. Veale. This Mrs. Veale was the
good lady who had stood sponsor for Loveday on that day when Aunt Senath
had perforce to blazon her sister's shame at the font. Ever since that
day Mrs. Veale had done her duty by Loveday without fail, instructing
her in the catechism regularly and occasionally presenting her with the
clothing of Miss Letitia Veale--who was a couple of years older than
Loveday--when the garments were outgrown and when they were suitable.
Mrs. Veale was too thoughtful a Christian to give Loveday artificial
flowers or silken petticoats unfitted to her station, but flannels,
thickened by so much washing that Saint Anthony of Egypt himself could
not have divined a female within their folds, were always forthcoming
to protect the orphan girl from wintry winds.