reeable it would be if
circumstances were different--how pleasant it would have been to meet
her this evening as she came back, and put his arm round her again and
look into her sweet face. He wondered if the dear little thing were
thinking of him too--twenty to one she was. How beautiful her eyes were
with the tear on their lashes! He would like to satisfy his soul for a
day with looking at them, and he MUST see her again--he must see her,
simply to remove any false impression from her mind about his manner
to her just now. He would behave in a quiet, kind way to her--just to
prevent her from going home with her head full of wrong fancies. Yes,
that would be the best thing to do after all.

It was a long while--more than an hour before Arthur had brought his
meditations to this point; but once arrived there, he could stay no
longer at the Hermitage. The time must be filled up with movement until
he should see Hetty again. And it was already late enough to go and
dress for dinner, for his grandfather's dinner-hour was six.

Chapter XIII

Evening in the Wood

IT happened that Mrs. Pomfret had had a slight quarrel with Mrs.
Best, the housekeeper, on this Thursday morning--a fact which had two
consequences highly convenient to Hetty. It caused Mrs. Pomfret to have
tea sent up to her own room, and it inspired that exemplary lady's maid
with so lively a recollection of former passages in Mrs. Best's conduct,
and of dialogues in which Mrs. Best had decidedly the inferiority as an
interlocutor with Mrs. Pomfret, that Hetty required no more presence
of mind than was demanded for using her needle, and throwing in an
occasional "yes" or "no." She would have wanted to put on her hat
earlier than usual; only she had told Captain Donnithorne that she
usually set out about eight o'clock, and if he SHOULD go to the Grove
again expecting to see her, and she should be gone! Would he come? Her
little butterfly soul fluttered incessantly between memory and dubious
expectation. At last the minute-hand of the old-fashioned brazen-faced
timepiece was on the last quarter to eight, and there was every reason
for its being time to get ready for departure. Even Mrs. Pomfret's
preoccupied mind did not prevent her from noticing what looked like a
new flush of beauty in the little thing as she tied on her hat before
the looking-glass.

"That child gets prettier and prettier every day, I do believe," was her
inward comment. "The more's t