d.

CHAPTER XI

You must suppose about three weeks passed over. Mrs. Graham and I were
now established friends--or brother and sister, as we rather chose to
consider ourselves. She called me Gilbert, by my express desire, and I
called her Helen, for I had seen that name written in her books. I
seldom attempted to see her above twice a week; and still I made our
meetings appear the result of accident as often as I could--for I found
it necessary to be extremely careful--and, altogether, I behaved with
such exceeding propriety that she never had occasion to reprove me once.
Yet I could not but perceive that she was at times unhappy and
dissatisfied with herself or her position, and truly I myself was not
quite contented with the latter: this assumption of brotherly nonchalance
was very hard to sustain, and I often felt myself a most confounded
hypocrite with it all; I saw too, or rather I felt, that, in spite of
herself, 'I was not indifferent to her,' as the novel heroes modestly
express it, and while I thankfully enjoyed my present good fortune, I
could not fail to wish and hope for something better in future; but, of
course, I kept such dreams entirely to myself.

'Where are you going, Gilbert?' said Rose, one evening, shortly after
tea, when I had been busy with the farm all day.

'To take a walk,' was the reply.

'Do you always brush your hat so carefully, and do your hair so nicely,
and put on such smart new gloves when you take a walk?'

'Not always.'

'You're going to Wildfell Hall, aren't you?'

'What makes you think so?'

'Because you look as if you were--but I wish you wouldn't go so often.'

'Nonsense, child! I don't go once in six weeks--what do you mean?'

'Well, but if I were you, I wouldn't have so much to do with Mrs.
Graham.'

'Why, Rose, are you, too, giving in to the prevailing opinion?'

'No,' returned she, hesitatingly--'but I've heard so much about her
lately, both at the Wilsons' and the vicarage;--and besides, mamma says,
if she were a proper person she would not be living there by herself--and
don't you remember last winter, Gilbert, all that about the false name to
the picture; and how she explained it--saying she had friends or
acquaintances from whom she wished her present residence to be concealed,
and that she was afraid of their tracing her out;--and then, how suddenly
she started up and left the room when that person came--whom she took
good care not to let us c