t last, when she was coming to town. Mrs.
Dennistoun did not say, as she did at first, "when she is coming home."
That possibility seemed to slip away somehow, and no one suggested it.
When she was coming to town, that was what they said between themselves.
She had spent the spring on the Riviera, a great part of it at Monte
Carlo, and her letters were full of the beauty of the place; but she
said less and less about people, and more and more about the sea and the
mountains, and the glorious road which gave at every turn a new and
beautiful vision of the hills and the sea. It was a little like a
guide-book, they sometimes felt, but neither said it; but at last it
became certain that in the month of May she was coming to town.

More than that, oh, more than that! One evening in May, when it was fine
but a little chilly, when Mrs. Dennistoun was walking wistfully in her
garden, looking at the moon shining in the west, and wondering if her
child had arrived in England, and whether she was coming to a house of
her own, or a lodging, or to be a visitor in some one else's house,
details which Elinor had not given--her ear was suddenly caught by the
distant rumbling of wheels, heavy wheels, the fly from the station
certainly. Mrs. Dennistoun had no expectation of what it could be, no
sort of hope: and yet a woman has always a sort of hope when her child
lives and everything is possible. The fly seemed to stop, not coming up
the little cottage drive; but by and by, when she had almost given up
hoping, there came a rush of flying feet, and a cry of joy, and Elinor
was in her mother's arms. Elinor! yes, it was herself, no vision, no
shadow such as had many a time come into Mrs. Dennistoun's dreams, but
herself in flesh and blood, the dear familiar figure, the face which,
between the twilight and those ridiculous tears which come when one is
too happy, could scarcely be seen at all. "Elinor, Elinor! it is you, my
darling!" "Yes, mother, it is me, really me. I could not write, because
I did not know till the last minute whether I could get away."

It may be imagined what a coming home that was. Mrs. Dennistoun, when
she saw her daughter even by the light of the lamp, was greatly
comforted. Elinor was looking well; she was changed in that
indescribable way in which marriage changes (though not always) the
happiest woman. And her appearance was changed; she was no longer the
country young lady very well dressed and looking as well as