his own time about it!' The grievance was still at the old squire's
heart in spite of the amenity of Mr. Brown's letter; but John Caldigate,
who was approaching his house and his wife, and to whom, after his
imprisonment even the flat fields and dykes were beautiful, did not at
the moment much regard the anomaly of the machinery by which he had been
liberated.

Hester in the meantime had donned her silk dress, and had tied the gay
bow round her baby's frock, who was quite old enough to be astonished
and charmed by the unusual finery in which he was apparelled. Then she
sat herself at the window of a bedroom which looked out on to the gravel
sweep, with her boy on her lap, and there she was determined to wait
till the carriage should come.

But she had hardly seated herself before she heard the wheels. 'He is
here. He is coming. There he is!' she said to the child. 'Look! look! It
is papa.' But she stood back from the window that she might not be
seen. She had thought it out with many fluctuations as to the very spot
in which she would meet him. At one moment she had intended to go down
to the gate, then to the hall-door, and again she had determined that
she would wait for him in the room in which his breakfast was prepared
for him. But she had ordered it otherwise at last. When she saw the
carriage approaching, she retreated back from the window, so that he
should not even catch a glimpse of her; but she had seen him as he sat,
still holding his father's hand. Then she ran back to her own chamber
and gave her orders as she passed across the passage. 'Go down, nurse,
and tell him that I am here. Run quick, nurse; tell him to come at
once.'

But he needed no telling. Whether he had divined her purpose, or whether
it was natural to him to fly like a bird to his nest, he rushed upstairs
and was in the room almost before his father had left the carriage She
had the child in her hands when she heard him turn the lock of the door;
but before he entered the boy had been laid in his cradle,--and then she
was in his arms.

For the first few minutes she was quite collected, not saying much, but
answering his questions by a word or two. Oh yes; she was well; and baby
was well,--quite well. He, too, looked well, she said, though there was
something of sadness in his face. 'But I will kiss that away,--so soon,
so soon.' She had always expected that he would come back long, long
before the time that had been named. She had been