h an emotion which seemed to the one who knew her
best to be too strong to be mere surprise. She looked doubtful for a
moment about the book being meant for her. Its German aspect was
conclusive against its being designed for Hester: but Miss Young,--was
it certain that the volume was not hers? She asked this; but Maria
replied, as her head was bent over her desk:

"There is no doubt about it. I am sure. It is nobody's but yours."

Some one proposed to resume the reading. The `Hymn to Heavenly Beauty'
was finished, but no remark followed. Each was thinking of something
else. More common subjects suited their present mood better. It was
urged upon Hester that she should be one of the daily party; and, her
lonely fancies being for the hour dispersed, she agreed.

"But," she observed, "other people's visits alter the case entirely. I
do not see how study is to go on if any one may come in from either
house, as Mr Enderby did to-day. It is depriving Miss Young of her
leisure, too, and making use of her apartment in a way that she may well
object to."

"I am here, out of school hours, only upon sufferance," replied Miss
Young. "I never call the room mine without this explanation."

"Besides," said Margaret, "it is a mere accident Mr Enderby's coming in
to-day. If he makes a habit of it, we have only to tell him that we
want our time to ourselves."

Miss Young knew better. She made no reply; but she felt in her inmost
soul that her new-born pleasures were, from this moment, to be turned
into pains. She knew Mr Enderby; and knowing him, foresaw that she was
to be a witness of his wooings of another, whom she had just begun to
take to her heart. This was to be her fate if she was strong enough for
it,--strong enough to be generous in allowing to Margaret opportunities
which could not without her be enjoyed, of fixing the heart of one whom
she could not pronounce to have been faulty towards herself. His
conversation today had gone far to make her suppose him blameless, and
herself alone in fault; so complete had seemed his unconsciousness with
regard to her. Her duty then was clearly to give them up to each other,
with such spirit of self-sacrifice as she might be capable of. If not
strong enough for this, the alternative was a daily painful retreat to
her lodging, whence she might look out on the heaps of cinders in the
farrier's yard, her spirit abased the while with the experience of her
own weakness.