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 authorised her
nephew to make his second visit to Oxney Combe that Miss Woolsworthy's
passion was not altogether unauthorised. 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 uphill miles from the station to Oxney. It need hardly he
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 Combe passed by the
parsonage-gate, and had Patience sat even at her bedroom window she
must have seen him. But on such a morning 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 Colne could do very well without any admixture from Eaton