. An affectionate billet from Hortense, informing her
young cousin that she was returned from Wormwood Wells; that she was
alone to-day, as Robert was gone to Whinbury market; that nothing would
give her greater pleasure than to have Caroline's company to tea, and
the good lady added, she was quite sure such a change would be most
acceptable and beneficial to Caroline, who must be sadly at a loss both
for safe guidance and improving society since the misunderstanding
between Robert and Mr. Helstone had occasioned a separation from her
"meilleure amie, Hortense Gerard Moore." In a postscript she was urged
to put on her bonnet and run down directly.

Caroline did not need the injunction. Glad was she to lay by the brown
holland child's slip she was trimming with braid for the Jew's basket,
to hasten upstairs, cover her curls with her straw bonnet, and throw
round her shoulders the black silk scarf, whose simple drapery suited as
well her shape as its dark hue set off the purity of her dress and the
fairness of her face; glad was she to escape for a few hours the
solitude, the sadness, the nightmare of her life; glad to run down the
green lane sloping to the Hollow, to scent the fragrance of hedge
flowers sweeter than the perfume of moss-rose or lily. True, she knew
Robert was not at the cottage; but it was delight to go where he had
lately been. So long, so totally separated from him, merely to see his
home, to enter the room where he had that morning sat, felt like a
reunion. As such it revived her; and then Illusion was again following
her in Peri mask. The soft agitation of wings caressed her cheek, and
the air, breathing from the blue summer sky, bore a voice which
whispered, "Robert may come home while you are in his house, and then,
at least, you may look in his face--at least you may give him your hand;
perhaps, for a minute, you may sit beside him."

"Silence!" was her austere response; but she loved the comforter and the
consolation.

Miss Moore probably caught from the window the gleam and flutter of
Caroline's white attire through the branchy garden shrubs, for she
advanced from the cottage porch to meet her. Straight, unbending,
phlegmatic as usual, she came on. No haste or ecstasy was ever permitted
to disorder the dignity of _her_ movements; but she smiled, well pleased
to mark the delight of her pupil, to feel her kiss and the gentle,
genial strain of her embrace. She led her tenderly in, half deceived an