to any place where it might go further.
They had taken leave of their friends as for a very short time, and when
they entered Deerbrook, looked around them as upon a place in which they
were to pass a summer.

All Deerbrook had been informed of their expected arrival--as it always
was of everything which concerned the Greys. The little Rowlands were
walking with their mother when the chaise came up the street; but being
particularly desired not to look at it, they were not much benefited by
the event. Their grandmamma, Mrs Enderby, was not at the moment under
the same restriction; and her high cap might be seen above the green
blind of her parlour as the chaise turned into Mr Grey's gate. The
stationer, the parish clerk, and the milliner and her assistant, had
obtained a passing view of sundry boxes, the face of an elderly woman,
and the outline of two black bonnets,--all that they could boast of to
repay them for the vigilance of a whole afternoon.

Sophia Grey might be pardoned for some anxiety about the reception of
the young ladies. She was four years younger than the younger of them;
and Hester, the elder, was one-and-twenty,--a venerable age to a girl of
sixteen. Sophia began to think she had never been really afraid of
anything before, though she remembered having cried bitterly when first
left alone with her governess; and though she had always been remarkable
for clinging to her mother's side on all social occasions, in the
approaching trial her mother could give her little assistance. These
cousins would be always with her. How she should read history, or
practise music with them in the room, she could not imagine, nor what
she should find to say to them all day long. If poor Elizabeth had but
lived, what a comfort she would have been now; the elder one would have
taken all the responsibility! And she heaved a sigh once more, as she
thought, to the memory of poor Elizabeth.

Mr Grey was at a market some miles off; and Sydney was sent by his
mother into the hall, to assist in the work of alighting, and causing
the luggage to alight. As any other boy of thirteen would have done, he
slunk behind the hall door, without venturing to speak to the strangers,
and left the business to the guests and the maids. Mrs Grey and Sophia
awaited them in the drawing-room, and were ready with information about
how uneasy they had all been about the rain in the morning, till they
remembered that it would lay the dus