ured for her both breakfast and provision for the
journey, and packed her clothes. Ursula would fain have been off
before the Rectory was aware, but the two little girls came up with a
message about the plans for the day, just as she was beginning an
explanatory note, and she entrusted to them the information that she
was so uneasy about Miss Headworth that she had decided on going to see
for herself.

So in dashed Adela and Rosalind to their mother's room full of
excitement with the news that Cousin Nuttie was gone off by the train,
because her aunt was very ill indeed.

'Gone, Adela? are you sure? Really gone?'

'Oh yes, mamma! The dogcart was coming round, and she said she wanted
to catch the 10.05 train, and was very sorry she had not time to write
a note to you.'

'Was there a letter? What had she heard?'

'Oh, only that her aunt was so very ill! She did not tell us--did she,
Rosie?'

'There was something about being in time to write to Aunt Alice,'
suggested Adela.

'I am very sorry about this. I am afraid it will be a great shock to
Alice,' observed the mother, as she imparted the news at her husband's
dressing-room door.

'Young girls are so precipitate!' said the Canon.

'Your brother won't like it at all,' the lady continued.

'Not he. But after all, it is just as well that he was not asked. They
do owe that poor old lady a good deal, and Alwyn's not the man to see
it. I'm not sorry the girl took the matter into her own hands, though
I couldn't have advised it.'

'Except that it will all fall on Alice.'

'He is very fond of Alice. She has done more with him than I ever
thought possible. Kept him respectable this whole year, and really it
grows on him. He makes ever so much more of her now than when he first
brought her home--and no wonder. No, no; he won't fall foul of her.'

'Perhaps not; but it is just as bad, or worse, for her if he falls foul
of her daughter. Besides, she is very much attached to her aunt. I
wish I knew what the account was, or whether she knows anything about
it.'

CHAPTER XXI.

URSULA'S RECEPTION.

'Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.'--SHAKESPEARE.

It was at half-past seven o'clock that Ursula Egremont's cab stopped at
St. Ambrose's Road. She had missed the express train, and had to come
on by a stopping one. But here at last she was, with eyes even by
gaslight full of loving recognition, a hand full of her cab-fare, a
heart fu