they go on as silly as
this. It seems it's some silly 'post office' they've had in a tree
between them and that Harkness. I've had that letter from him, and
certainly, Miss Sophia, if he's as much to blame as them, he's acted
civil enough now. He had a better heart than most men, I believe, for
all he bragged about it. He forgot where he had thrown their letters as
waste paper, and you'll see by that letter of his he took some trouble
to write to me to go and get them, for fear they should be found and the
girls talked about."

Sophia stood still in dismay.

"There!" said Eliza, "I knew you'd feel hurt, but I thought you'd better
know for all that. There's no harm done, only they'd better have a good
setting down about it." She began to turn back again. "I must go," she
said, "the dining-room girls are rushed off their feet; but if I were
you, Miss Sophia, I wouldn't say a word to anyone else about it. Some
one came in while I was getting these letters, but it was dark and I
dodged round and made off without being seen, so that I needn't explain.
It wouldn't do for the girls, you know--"

Sophia turned the letters about in her hand. One was from Cyril Harkness
to Eliza; the others were poor, foolish little notes, written by Blue
and Red. Louise came out of the yard and passed them into the field, and
Sophia thrust the letters into her dress.

That Eliza should naively give her advice concerning the training of her
sisters was a circumstance so in keeping with the girl's force of
character that her late mistress hardly gave it a thought, nor had she
time at that moment to wonder where the letters had been left and found.
It was the thought that the family reputation for sense and sobriety had
apparently been in the hands of an unprincipled stranger, and had been
preserved only by his easy good-nature and by Eliza's energy, that
struck her with depressing and irritating force. Had the girls come in
her way just then, the words she would have addressed to them would have
been more trenchant than wise, but as Eliza was by her side, retreating
towards the road, she felt no desire to discuss the matter with her.

She observed now that Eliza looked worn and miserable as she had never
seen her look before, unless, indeed, it had been in the first few days
she ever saw her. The crowded state of the hotel could hardly account
for this. "I hope, Eliza, that having despised that suitor of yours when
he was here, you are not re