open the sluices of her tears.
Mrs Grey's countenance was to the last degree dismal: but she talked--
talked industriously, of everything she could think of. This was the
broadest possible hint to the sisters not to inquire what was the
matter; and they therefore went on sewing and conversing very diligently
till they thought they might relieve Mrs Grey by offering to retire.
They hesitated only because Mr Grey had not come in; and he so
regularly appeared at ten o'clock, that they had never yet retired
without having enjoyed half an hour's chat with him.

"Sophia, my dear," said her mother, "are the night candles there? Light
your cousins' candles.--I am sure they are wishing to go; and it is
getting late. You will not see Mr Grey to-night, my dears. He has
been sent for to a distance."

At this moment, the scrambling of a horse's feet was heard on the gravel
before the front door. Sophia looked at her mother, and each lighted a
candle precipitately, and thrust it into a hand of each cousin.

"There, go, my dears," said Mrs Grey. "Never mind stopping for Mr
Grey. I will deliver your good-night to him. You will have to be
rather early in the morning, you know. Good-night, good-night."

Thus Hester and Margaret were hurried up-stairs, while the front door
was in the act of being unbarred for Mr Grey's entrance. Morris was
despatched after them, with equal speed, by Mrs Grey's orders, and she
reached their chamber-door at the same moment that they did.

Hester set down her candle, bade Morris shut the door, and threw herself
into an armchair with wonderful decision of manner, declaring that she
had never been so treated;--to be amused and sent to bed like a baby, in
a house where she was a guest!

"I am afraid something is the matter," said Margaret.

"What then? they might have told us so, and said plainly that they had
rather be alone."

"People must choose their own ways of managing their own affairs, you
know: and what those ways are cannot matter to us, as long as we are not
offended at them."

"Do you take your own way of viewing their behaviour, then, and leave me
mine," said Hester hastily.

Morris feared there was something amiss; and she believed Alice knew
what it was: but she had not told either cook or housemaid a syllable
about it. By Morris's account, Alice had been playing the mysterious in
the kitchen as her mistress had in the parlour. Mr Grey had been
suddenly sent for, and had s