did think of it then.' And so the subject was allowed to pass by. This
had happened before the day of the second arrival had been absolutely
fixed and made known to Miss Woolsworthy.

And then that second arrival took place. The reader may have understood
from the words with which Miss Le Smyrger authorized her nephew to make
his second visit to Oxney Colne that Miss Woolsworthy's passion was not
altogether unauthorized. Captain Broughton had been told that he was not
to come unless he came with a certain purpose; and having been so told,
he still persisted in coming. There can be no doubt but that he well
understood the purport to which his aunt alluded. 'I shall assuredly
come,' he had said. And true to his word, he was now there.

Patience knew exactly the hour at which he must arrive at the station at
Newton Abbot, and the time also which it would take to travel over those
twelve up-hill miles from the station to Oxney. It need hardly be said
that she paid no visit to Miss Le Smyrger's house on that afternoon; but
she might have known something of Captain Broughton's approach without
going thither. His road to the Colne passed by the parsonage-gate, and
had Patience sat even at her bedroom window she must have seen him. But
on such an evening she would not sit at her bedroom window;--she would
do nothing which would force her to accuse herself of a restless longing
for her lover's coming. It was for him to seek her. If he chose to do
so, he knew the way to the parsonage.

Miss Le Smyrger--good, dear, honest, hearty Miss Le Smyrger, was in a
fever of anxiety on behalf of her friend. It was not that she wished her
nephew to marry Patience,--or rather that she had entertained any such
wish when he first came among them. She was not given to match-making,
and moreover thought, or had thought within herself, that they of Oxney