ach
sending to the other on each occasion three sheets of note paper
crossed over on every page from top to bottom. Caroline had certainly
no such bosom friend, and perhaps neither had Adela; but they were
friends enough to call each other by their Christian names, to lend
each other music and patterns, and perhaps to write when they had
anything special to say. There had been a sort of quasi-connection
between Miss Baker and the elder Miss Gauntlet--a connection of a
very faint local character--in years gone by. Miss Baker, by reason
of her Bertram relations, had been at Hurst Staple, and Miss Gauntlet
had been at West Putford at the same time. They had thus become
acquainted, and the acquaintance there had led to a Littlebath
friendship. Friendships in Littlebath are not of a very fervid
description.

Miss Waddington had now been engaged for six months, and hitherto
she had made no confidante. She knew no resident at Littlebath whom
she would willingly trust with her heart's secret: her aunt, and her
aunt's cognizance of the matter were quite another thing. No one
could be more affectionate than aunt Mary, no one more trustworthy,
no one more thoroughly devoted to another than she was to her niece.
But then she was not only old, but old-fashioned. She was prudent,
and Caroline also was prudent; but their prudence was a different
kind. There was no dash, no ambition about aunt Mary's prudence.
She was rather humdrum, Caroline thought; and, which was worse,
though she liked George Bertram, she did not seem to understand his
character at all in the same light as that in which Caroline regarded
it.

From these circumstances it came to pass that Adela had not been a
week at Littlebath before she was made acquainted with the grand
secret. She also had a secret of her own; but she did not tell that
in return. Secrets such as Caroline's are made to be told; but those
other secrets, those which burn up the heart instead of watering it
as with a dew from heaven, those secrets for the most part are not
made to be told.

"And yet, Adela, I suppose it will never happen." This had been said
on the morning of that Saturday which was to bring down not only
Bertram, but Harcourt. Caroline knew well that the London friend,
the man of the world, was being brought to inspect her, and was by
no means afraid of undergoing the inspection. She was not timid by
nature; and though, as has been already said, she was hardly yet
conscious o