A removal would in fact have been impossible during the latter years of
Mrs. Vivian's life: but she had now been dead about eighteen months,
her daughter had recovered from the first grief of her loss, and there
was a general impression throughout the family that now was the time
for her to come amongst them again. For herself, the possibility was
but beginning to dawn upon her; just at first she joined in building
castles and imagining scenes at Knight Sutton, without thinking of
their being realized, or that it only depended upon her, to find
herself at home there; and when Frederick and Henrietta, encouraged by
this manner of talking, pressed it upon her, she would reply with some
vague intention of a return some time or other, but still thinking of
it as something far away, and rather to be dreaded than desired.

It was chiefly by dint of repetition that it fully entered her mind
that it was their real and earnest wish that she should engage to take
a lease of the Pleasance, and remove almost immediately from her
present abode; and from this time it might be perceived that she always
shrank from entering on the subject in a manner which gave them little
reason to hope.

"Yet, I think," said Henrietta to her brother one afternoon as they
were walking together on the sands; "I think if she once thought it was
right, if Uncle Geoffrey would tell her so, or if grandpapa would
really tell her that he wished it, I am quite sure that she would
resolve upon it."

"But why did he not do so long ago?" said Fred.

"O! because of grandmamma, I suppose," said Henrietta; "but he really
does wish it, and I should not at all wonder if the Busy Bee could put