at a gentle young man
might think of her waywardness, she immediately afterwards determined to
please herself by reversing her statement.

'On second thoughts, I will take it,' she said.

They slowly went their way up the hill, a few yards behind the carriage.

'How silent you are, Miss Swancourt!' Stephen observed.

'Perhaps I think you silent too,' she returned.

'I may have reason to be.'

'Scarcely; it is sadness that makes people silent, and you can have
none.'

'You don't know: I have a trouble; though some might think it less a
trouble than a dilemma.'

'What is it?' she asked impulsively.

Stephen hesitated. 'I might tell,' he said; 'at the same time, perhaps,
it is as well----'

She let go his arm and imperatively pushed it from her, tossing her
head. She had just learnt that a good deal of dignity is lost by asking
a question to which an answer is refused, even ever so politely;
for though politeness does good service in cases of requisition and
compromise, it but little helps a direct refusal. 'I don't wish to know
anything of it; I don't wish it,' she went on. 'The carriage is waiting
for us at the top of the hill; we must get in;' and Elfride flitted
to the front. 'Papa, here is your Elfride!' she exclaimed to the dusky
figure of the old gentleman, as she sprang up and sank by his side
without deigning to accept aid from Stephen.

'Ah, yes!' uttered the vicar in artificially alert tones, awaking from a
most profound sleep, and suddenly preparing to alight.

'Why, what are you doing, papa? We are not home yet.'

'Oh no, no; of course not; we are not at home yet,' Mr. Swancourt said
very hastily, endeavouring to dodge back to his original position with
the air of a man who had not moved at all. 'The fact is I was so lost in
deep meditation that I forgot whereabouts we were.' And in a minute the
vicar was snoring again.

That evening, being the last, seemed to throw an exceptional shade of
sadness over Stephen Smith, and the repeated injunctions of the vicar,
that he was to come and revisit them in the summer, apparently tended
less to raise his spirits than to unearth some misgiving.

He left them in the gray light of dawn, whilst the colours of earth were
sombre, and the sun was yet hidden in the east. Elfride had fidgeted all
night in her little bed lest none of the household should be awake
soon enough to start him, and also lest she might miss seeing again
the bright eyes and curly ha