CHANGES.

"But never light and shade
Coursed one another more on open ground,
Beneath a troubled heaven, than red and pale
Across the face of Enid hearing her."

Various letters were written that day. In the evening the two ladies
came together again cheerfully. The time between had not all been spent
in letter-writing, for the world does not stand still for love matters.
Eleanor had been out the whole afternoon on visits of kindness and help
to sick and poor people. Mrs. Caxton had been obliged to attend to the
less interesting company of one or two cheese-factors. At the tea-table
the subject of the morning came back.

"You posted your letter and mine, Eleanor?"

"Yes, ma'am. But I cannot think mamma's answer will be favourable. I
cannot fancy it."

"Well, we shall see. The world is a curious world; and the wind does
not always blow from the quarter whence we expect it. We must wait and
pray."

"I am puzzled to imagine, aunt Caxton," Eleanor said after some pause,
"how you came to know all about this matter in the first place. How
came you to know what I never knew?"

"That is my story," said Mrs. Caxton. "We will let the table be cleared
first, my dear."

So it was done. But Eleanor left her work by her side to-night, and
looked into her aunt's face to listen.

"I never should have known about it, child, till you had, if you had
been here. You remember how you went away in a hurry. Who knows?
Perhaps, but for that, none of us would have been any wiser to-day on
the subject than we were then. It is very possible."

"How, ma'am?"

"You disappeared, you know, in one night, and were gone. When Mr. Rhys
came home, the next day or the same day, I saw that he was very much
disappointed. That roused my suspicions of him; they had been only
doubtful before. He is not a person to shew what he thinks, unless he
chooses."

"So I knew; that made me surprised."

"I saw that he was very much disappointed, and looked very sober; but
he said hardly anything about it, and I was forced to be silent. Then
in a little while--a few weeks, I think--he received his appointment,
with the news that he must sail very soon. He had to leave Plassy then
in a very few days; for he wanted some time in London and elsewhere. I
saw there was something more than leaving Plassy, upon his mind; he was
graver than that could make him, I knew; and he was giving up something
more than England, I knew by is prayers.

"One nig