n
won't be here, and I shall be seeing new places and new people, and--oh,
I do wonder what it will all be like!"

The clock ticked steadily on, regardless of anything but its own
business. Half-past six! Miss Milverton had stayed longer than usual.
Anna began to wonder what time her father would be home. They were to
dine together on this, their last evening, but Mr Forrest was so
absorbed in his preparations for leaving England that he was likely to
be very late. Perhaps he would not be in till eight o'clock, and even
then would have his mind too full of business to talk much at dinner,
and would spend the evening in writing letters. Anna sighed. There
were some questions she very much wanted to ask him, and this would be
her only chance. To-morrow she was to go to Waverley, and the next day
Mr Forrest started for America, and she would not see him again for two
whole years.

It was strange to think of, but not altogether sad from Anna's point of
view, for her father was almost a stranger to her. He lived a life
apart, into which she had never entered: his friends, his business, his
frequent journeys abroad, occupied him fully, and he was quite content
that Anna's welfare should be left in the hands of Miss Milverton, her
daily governess. It was Aunt Sarah who recommended Miss Milverton to
the post, which she had now filled, with ceaseless kindness and
devotion, for seven years. "You will find her invaluable," Mrs Forrest
had said to her brother-in-law, and so she was. When Anna was ill, she
nursed her; when she wanted change of air, she took her to the sea-side;
she looked after her both in body and mind, with the utmost
conscientiousness. But there was one thing she could not do: she could
not be an amusing companion for a girl of fifteen, and Anna had often
been lonely and dull.

Now that was all over. A sudden change had come into her life. The
London house was to be given up, her father was going away, and she was
to be committed to Aunt Sarah's instruction and care for two whole
years. Waverley and Aunt Sarah, instead of London and Miss Milverton!
It was a change indeed, in more than one way, for although Anna was
nearly fifteen, she had never yet stayed in the country; her ideas of it
were gathered from books, and from what she could see from a railway
carriage, as Miss Milverton and she were carried swiftly on their way to
the sea-side for their annual change of air. She thought of it all no