about, quite at home,
preparing cups of tea for everybody, herself included; and waiting upon
Mr. Rhys with a steady care and affectionateness which evidently met
with an affectionate return. The cottage room with its plain
furniture--the little common blue cups in which the tea was served--the
fire in the chimney on the coarse iron fire-dogs--the reclining figure
on the couch, and her own riding-habit in the middle of the room; were
all stereotyped on Eleanor's memory for ever. The tea refreshed her
very much.

"How are you going to get home, Miss Powle?" asked her host. "Have you
sent for a carriage?"

"No--I saw nobody to send--I can walk it quite well now," said Eleanor.
And feeling that the time was come, she set down her tea-cup and came
to bid her host good-bye; though she shrank from doing it. She gave him
her hand again, but she had no words to speak.

"Good-bye," said he. "I am sorry I am not well enough to come and see
you; I would take that liberty."

"And so I shall never see him again," thought Eleanor as she went out
of the cottage; "and nobody will ever speak any more words to me of
what I want to hear; and what will become of me! What chance shall I
have very soon--what chance have I now--to attend to these things? to
get right? and what chance would all these things have with Mr.
Carlisle? I could manage my mother. What will become of me!"

Eleanor walked and thought, both hard, till she got past the village;
finding herself alone, thought got the better of haste, and she threw
herself down under a tree to collect some order and steadiness in her
mind if possible before other interests and distractions broke in. She
sat with her face buried in her hands a good while. And one conclusion
Eleanor's thoughts came to; that there was a thing more needful than
other things; and that she would hold that one thing first in her mind,
and keep it first in her endeavours, and make all her arrangements
accordingly. Eleanor was young and untried, but her mind had a
tolerable back-bone of stiffness when once aroused to take action; her
conclusion meant something. She rose up, then; looked to see how far
down the sun was; and turning to pursue her walk vigorously--found Mr.
Carlisle at her side. He was as much surprised as she.

"Why Eleanor! what are you doing here?"

"Trying to get home. I have been thrown from my pony."

"Thrown! where?"

"Away on the moor--I don't know where. I never was there before.