Yes, I'll stop." She said no more--but sighed a great sigh, as if her mind were relieved--( "So," thought Hilary, "she was not so indifferent to us as we imagined")--and bustled back into her kitchen.
"Now for the clothing of her," observed Miss Leaf, also looking much relieved that the decision was over.

"You know what we agreed upon; and there is certainly no time to be lost.

Hilary, my dear, suppose you bring down your brown merino ?" Hilary went without a word.
People who inhabit the same house, eat, sit, and sleep together--loving one another and sympathizing with one another, ever so deeply and dearly--nevertheless inevitably have momentary seasons when the intense solitude in which we all live, and must expect ever to live, at the depth of our being, forces itself painfully upon the heart.

Johanna must have had many such seasons when Hilary was a child; Hilary had one now.
She unfolded the old frock, and took out of its pocket, a hiding place at once little likely to be searched, and harmless if discovered, a poor little memento of that happy midsummer day.
"Dear Miss Hilary.

To-morrow, then, I shall come.
Yours truly, Robert Lyon." The only scrap of note she had ever received; he always wrote to Johanna; as regularly as ever, or more so, now Ascott was gone; but only to Johanna.