y to Rufus,
making the pursuit of his studies his excuse for remaining in London.
After this, there was no further correspondence. The mornings succeeded
each other, and the postman brought no more news from the world outside.

But the lessons went on; and the teacher and pupil were as
inconsiderately happy as ever in each other's society. Observing with
inexhaustible interest the progress of the mental development of
Sally, Amelius was slow to perceive the physical development which was
unobtrusively keeping pace with it. He was absolutely ignorant of the
part which his own influence was taking in the gradual and delicate
process of change. Ere long, the first forewarnings of the coming
disturbance in their harmless relations towards each other, began to
show themselves. Ere long, there were signs of a troubled mind in Sally,
which were mysteries to Amelius, and subjects of wonderment, sometimes
even trials of temper, to the girl herself.

One day, she looked in from the door of her room, in her white
dressing-gown, and asked to be forgiven if she kept the lessons of the
morning waiting for a little while.

"Come in," said Amelius, "and tell me why."

She hesitated. "You won't think me lazy, if you see me in my
dressing-gown?"

"Of course not! Your dressing-gown, my dear, is as good as any other
gown. A young girl like you looks best in white."

She came in with her work-basket, and her indoor dress over her arm.

Amelius laughed. "Why haven't you put it on?" he asked.

She sat down in a corner, and looked at her work-basket, instead of
looking at Amelius. "It doesn't fit me so well as it did," she answered.
"I am obliged to alter it."

Amelius looked at her--at the charming youthful figure that had filled
out, at the softly-rounded outline of the face with no angles and
hollows in it now. "Is it the dressmaker's fault?" he asked slyly.

Her eyes were still on the basket. "It's my fault," she said. "You
remember what a poor little skinny creature I was, when you first saw
me. I--you won't like me the worse for it, will you?--I am getting fat.
I don't know why. They say happy people get fat. Perhaps that's why.
I'm never hungry, and never frightened, and never miserable now--" She
stopped; her dress slipped from her lap to the floor. "Don't look at
me!" she said--and suddenly put her hands over her face.

Amelius saw the tears finding their way through the pretty plump
fingers, which he remembered so shapel