d her dress high above
the mud. 'Are the girls out?'

'Yes, Catherine and Agnes are at the school; and Rose, I think, is
practising.'

'Ah, well,' said Mrs. Thornburgh, settling herself in a chair close by
her friend, 'I wanted to find you alone.'

Her face, framed in bushy curls and an old garden bonnet, was flushed
and serious. Her mittened hands were clasped nervously on her lap, and
there was about her such an air of forcibly restrained excitement, that
Mrs. Leyburn's mild eyes gazed at her with some astonishment. The two
women were a curious contrast: Mrs. Thornburgh short, inclined, as we
know, to be stout, ample and abounding in all things, whether it
were curls or cap-strings or conversation; Mrs. Leyburn tall and well
proportioned, well dressed, with the same graceful ways and languid
pretty manners as had first attracted her husband's attention thirty
years before. She was fond of Mrs. Thornburgh, but there was something
in the ebullient energies of the vicar's wife which always gave her a
sense of bustle and fatigue.

'I am sure you will be sorry to hear,' began her visitor, that Mr.
Elsmere is going.'

'Going?' said Mrs. Leyburn, laying down her knitting. 'Why, I thought he
was going to stay with you another ten days at least.'

'So did I--so did he,' said Mrs. Thornburgh, nodding, and then pausing
with a most effective air of sudden gravity and 'recollection.'

'Then why--what's the matter?' asked Mrs. Leyburn, wondering.

Mrs. Thornburgh did not answer for a minute, and Mrs. Leyburn began to
feel a little nervous, her visitor's eyes were fixed upon her with so
much meaning. Urged by a sudden impulse, she bent forward; so did Mrs.
Thornburgh, and their two elderly heads nearly touched.

'The young man is in love!' said the vicar's wife in a stage whisper,
drawing back after a pause, to see the effect of her announcement.

'Oh! with whom?' asked Mrs. Leyburn, her look brightening. She liked a
love affair as much as ever.

Mrs. Thornburgh furtively looked round to see if the door was shut and
all safe--she felt herself a criminal, but the sense of guilt had an
exhilarating rather than a depressing affect upon her.

'Have you guessed nothing? have the girls told you anything?'

'No!' said Mrs. Leyburn, her eyes opening wider and wider. She never
guessed anything; there was no need, with three daughters to think for
her, and give her the benefit of their young brains. 'No,' she said
again. 'I ca