hivalry,' said Betty, with
shining eyes, 'only instead of a beautiful ladye-love, the darling's
been fighting and getting wounded just for his two maiden aunts.
Angel, I believe that Jones is a dear boy. I should like to send a
little cake for him when we send Godfrey one. Angel, do you--do you
think it's our duty to scold Godfrey for fighting?'

'I'm not sure,' said Angel slowly; and then she added, for once as
decidedly as her sister, 'but I'm sure I'm not going to.'

I expect a diary of the lives of Angelica and Betty for the next year
or two would have run something in this way:

'Godfrey came home. Heard from Godfrey. Godfrey writes that the
cricket season has begun. Godfrey brought home a prize. Godfrey went
back to school' (this last with a very black mark against it). But
such a diary, though it was deeply interesting to the two young aunts
themselves, wouldn't make much of a story to those who didn't mark time
by Godfrey's holidays, and so we must just take a leap over several of
these uneventful years and come suddenly to the day which all the time
had stood in Angel's mind as a sort of background to everything else
that happened, the day which she had taught herself to think about, and
which she prayed every day of her quiet life that she might be strong
and brave to meet.

It was an autumn day, misty and still, like that on which Godfrey had
first come to Oakfield, and Cousin Crayshaw came down in the middle of
the week. It was late afternoon, and Angel was catching the last light
from the window on her sewing; and when she raised her head at the
sound of wheels, and saw her cousin get out of his chaise, she knew in
one moment that the day she had been preparing for had come. She put
her work down with very trembling hands, and went down the path to meet
Mr. Crayshaw, knowing quite well what he had to say to her while he
made little nervous remarks about the weather, until at last he took a
paper out of his pocket and gave it her to read, watching her anxiously
all the while. The writing seem to grow dim and uncertain before
Angel's eyes, but she knew what it was--the order for Mr. Godfrey
Wyndham to join the frigate _Mermaid_, Captain Maitland, ordered to the
Channel, there to do the service of a midshipman. Angel's voice
sounded to herself rather strange and far-away as she asked:

'When does the _Mermaid_ sail?'

'In four days. Captain Maitland is in London; he'll be here to-morrow.
I h