And on the following morning she was up before him. She hardly
understood, herself, why she was doing this. She knew that it should be
her object to avoid any further special conversation on that subject
which they discussed up among the rocks. She knew that she could give
him no comfort, and that he could give none to her. It would seem that
he was willing to let the remembrance of the scene pass away, so that
it should be as though it had never been; and surely it was not for her
to disturb so salutary an arrangement! But yet she was up to bid him
God speed as he went. She could not bear,. so she excused the matter to
herself she could not bear to think that he should regard her as
ungrateful. She knew all that he had done for them. She had perceived
that the taking of the land, the building of the sheds, the life which
he had contrived in so short a time to throw into the old place, had
all come from a desire on his part to do good to those in whose way he
stood by family arrangements made almost before his birth; and she
longed to say to him one word of thanks. And had he not told her once
in the heat of his disappointment; for then at that moment, as Clara
had said to herself, she supposed that he must have been in some
measure disappointed had he not even then told her that when she wanted
a brother's care, a brother's care should be given to her by him? Was
she not therefore~ bound to do for him what she would do for a brother?

She, with her own hands, brought the coffee into the little breakfast
parlour, and handed the cup into his hands. The gig, which had come
overnight from Taunton, was not yet at the door, and there was a minute
or two during which they must speak to each other. Who has not seen
some such girl when she has come down early, without the full
completeness of her morning toilet, and yet nicer, fresher, prettier to
the eye of him who is so favoured, than she has ever been in more