CHAPTER VII.
The following morning about noon, Rose, who had been coaxed and persuaded by Catherine, much against her will, into taking a singing class at the school, closed the school door behind her with a sigh of relief, and tripped up the road to Burwood.
'How abominably they sang this morning!' she said to herself, with curving lip.

'Talk of the natural north-country gift for music! What ridiculous fictions people set up! Dear me, what clouds! Perhaps we shan't got our walk to Shanmnoor after all, and if we don't, and if-if--' her cheek flashed with a sudden excitement-'if Mr.Elsmere doesn't propose, Mrs.Thornburgh will be unmanageable.

It is all Agnes and I can do to keep her in bounds as it is, and if something doesn't come off to-day, she'll be for reversing the usual proceeding, and asking Catherine her intentions, which would ruin everything.' Then raising her head she swept her eyes round the sky.

The wind was freshening, the clouds were coming up fast from the westward; over the summit of High Fell and the crags on either side, a gray straight-edged curtain was already lowering.
'It will hold up yet a while,' she thought, 'and if it rains later we can get a carriage at Shanmoor and come back by the road.' And she walked on homeward meditating, her thin fingers clasped before her, the wind blowing her skirts, the blue ribbons on her hat, the little gold curls on her temples, in an artistic many-colored turmoil about her.

When she got to Burwood she shut herself into the room which was peculiarly hers, the room which had been a stable.