branch of lime tree, and the same piece of sky which had met her eyes
every morning, she mused there till she was roused by hearing Gerald's
voice very loud in the nursery. Hastening thither, she found him
insisting that his collection of stones and spars was much too precious
to mend the roads with, as their maid Saunders proposed, and Agnes
settling the matter satisfactorily by offering to take them to adorn a
certain den in the vicarage garden with. The ponies were to be turned
out to grass, the rabbits were bestowed on James Wortley, and Ranger
was to be kept at the vicarage till Edmund could come and fetch him,
together with his books, which Marian had to look out, and she found it
a service of difficulty, since "Edmund Gerald" could scarcely be said to
answer the purpose of a proper name in the Arundel family.

The last day at home arrived, the eve of S. James. Marian went to
prepare her class at the weekly school, resolved to do just as usual to
the last. She had to read them the conversation on S. James's Day in
"Fasts and Festivals," but she could hardly get through with it, the
separation between early friends reminded her so much of herself and
Agnes, and then the comparison of the two roads, one in burning and
scorching sunshine, the other in the cool fresh shade, almost overset
her, for though she could not tell why, she chose to be persuaded that
the first must be hers. But they both ended in the same place. She felt
tears coming into her eyes, but she kept them down, and went on reading
in a steady monotonous voice, as if the meaning was nothing to her; she
asked the children questions in a dry, grave, matter-of-fact way, as if
she had not the slightest interest in them or in the subject, though her
heart was full of affection to the dullest and roughest among them, and
when she went away, her nod, and "well, good morning," to the school
mistress were several shades further from warmth than usual.