to have a
great desire to know Anna for her own sake. Would they be friends? and
what sort of girl was she? Mr Goodwin had told her so very little.
Affectionate, sweet-tempered, yielding. She might be all that without
being very interesting. Still she hoped they might be able to like each
other; for although the Hunts had a wide acquaintance, Delia had few
friends of her own age, nor any one with whom she felt in entire
sympathy, except the Professor. Delia was not popular in Dornton, and
people regretted that such a "sweet" woman as Mrs Hunt should have a
daughter who was often so blunt in her manners, and so indisposed to
make herself pleasant. Her life, therefore, though full of busy
matters, was rather lonely, and she would have made it still more so, if
possible, by shutting herself up with her violin and her books. The
bustling sociabilities of her home, however, prevented this, and she was
constantly obliged, with inward revolt, to leave the things she loved
for some social occasion, or to pick up the dropped stitches of Mrs
Hunt's household affairs.

There were endless little matters from morning till night for Delia to
attend to, and it was only by getting up very early that she found any
time at all for her studies and her music. In winter this was hard
work, and progress with her violin almost impossible for stiff, cold
fingers; but no one at her home took Delia's music seriously: it was an
accomplishment, a harmless amusement, but by no means to be allowed to
take time from more important affairs. It did not matter whether she
practised or not, but it did matter that she should be ready to make
calls with her mother, or to carry soup to someone in Mrs Hunt's
district who had been overlooked. She would have given up her music
altogether if her courage had not been revived from time to time by Mr
Goodwin, and her ambition rekindled by hearing him play; as it was, she
always came back to it with fresh heart and hope after seeing him.

For nearly a week after her last visit, Delia awoke every morning with a
determination to walk over to Waverley, and each day passed without her
having done so. At last, however, chance arranged her meeting with
Anna. Coming into the drawing-room one afternoon in search of her
mother, she found, not Mrs Hunt, but a tall girl of fourteen, with
light yellow hair, sitting in the window, with a patient expression, as
though she had been waiting there some time. Delia ad