tractably
persistent on this point, when she is usually so yielding.

April 30.--This month has flown on swallow's wings. We are in a great
state of excitement--I as much as she--I cannot quite tell why. He is
really coming in ten days, he says.

May 9. Four p.m.--I am so agitated I can scarcely write, and yet am
particularly impelled to do so before leaving my room. It is the
unexpected shape of an expected event which has caused my absurd
excitement, which proves me almost as much a school-girl as Caroline.

M. de la Feste was not, as we understood, to have come till to-morrow;
but he is here--just arrived. All household directions have devolved
upon me, for my father, not thinking M. de la Feste would appear before
us for another four-and-twenty hours, left home before post time to
attend a distant consecration; and hence Caroline and I were in no small
excitement when Charles's letter was opened, and we read that he had been
unexpectedly favoured in the dispatch of his studio work, and would
follow his letter in a few hours. We sent the covered carriage to meet
the train indicated, and waited like two newly strung harps for the first
sound of the returning wheels. At last we heard them on the gravel; and
the question arose who was to receive him. It was, strictly speaking, my
duty; but I felt timid; I could not help shirking it, and insisted that
Caroline should go down. She did not, however, go near the door as she
usually does when anybody is expected, but waited palpitating in the
drawing-room. He little thought when he saw the silent hall, and the
apparently deserted house, how that house was at the very same moment
alive and throbbing with interest under the surface. I stood at the back
of the upper landing, where nobody could see me from downstairs, and
heard him walk across the hall--a lighter step than my father's--and
heard him then go into the drawing-room, and the servant shut the door
behind him and go away.

What a pretty lover's meeting they must have had in there all to
themselves! Caroline's sweet face looking up from her black gown--how it
must have touched him. I know she wept very much, for I heard her; and
her eyes will be red afterwards, and no wonder, poor dear, though she is
no doubt happy. I can imagine what she is telling him while I write
this--her fears lest anything should have happened to prevent his coming
after all--gentle, smiling reproaches for his long delay; and th