favour; and he had given her another strong motive for exertion, in
keeping the whole affair from the knowledge of her aunts. Not to excite
suspicion by her look or manner was now an object worth attaining; and
she felt equal to almost anything that might save her from her aunt
Norris.

She was struck, quite struck, when, on returning from her walk and going
into the East room again, the first thing which caught her eye was a
fire lighted and burning. A fire! it seemed too much; just at that time
to be giving her such an indulgence was exciting even painful gratitude.
She wondered that Sir Thomas could have leisure to think of such a
trifle again; but she soon found, from the voluntary information of the
housemaid, who came in to attend it, that so it was to be every day. Sir
Thomas had given orders for it.

"I must be a brute, indeed, if I can be really ungrateful!" said she, in
soliloquy. "Heaven defend me from being ungrateful!"

She saw nothing more of her uncle, nor of her aunt Norris, till they met
at dinner. Her uncle's behaviour to her was then as nearly as possible
what it had been before; she was sure he did not mean there should be
any change, and that it was only her own conscience that could fancy
any; but her aunt was soon quarrelling with her; and when she found how
much and how unpleasantly her having only walked out without her aunt's
knowledge could be dwelt on, she felt all the reason she had to bless
the kindness which saved her from the same spirit of reproach, exerted
on a more momentous subject.

"If I had known you were going out, I should have got you just to go
as far as my house with some orders for Nanny," said she, "which I have
since, to my very great inconvenience, been obliged to go and carry
myself. I could very ill spare the time, and you might have saved me the
trouble, if you would only have been so good as to let us know you were
going out. It would have made no difference to you, I suppose, whether
you had walked in the shrubbery or gone to my house."

"I recommended the shrubbery to Fanny as the driest place," said Sir
Thomas.

"Oh!" said Mrs. Norris, with a moment's check, "that was very kind of
you, Sir Thomas; but you do not know how dry the path is to my house.
Fanny would have had quite as good a walk there, I assure you, with the
advantage of being of some use, and obliging her aunt: it is all her
fault. If she would but have let us know she was going out but there is