to hear, Eunice,
if you and my cousin are likely to get on well together."

The servants told me that Miss Jillgall was in the garden.

I searched here, there, and everywhere, and failed to find her. The
place was so quiet, it looked so deliciously pure and bright, after
smoky dreary London, that I sat down at the further end of the garden
and let my mind take me back to Philip. What was he doing at that
moment, while I was thinking of him? Perhaps he was in the company of
other young ladies, who drew all his thoughts away to themselves? Or
perhaps he was writing to his father in Ireland, and saying something
kindly and prettily about me? Or perhaps he was looking forward, as
anxiously as I do, to our meeting next week.

I have had my plans, and I have changed my plans.

On the railway journey, I thought I would tell papa at once of the new
happiness which seems to have put a new life into me. It would have been
delightful to make my confession to that first and best and dearest of
friends; but my meeting with the doctor spoiled it all. After what he
had said to me, I discovered a risk. If I ventured to tell papa that my
heart was set on a young gentleman who was a stranger to him, could I be
sure that he would receive my confession favorably? There was a chance
that it might irritate him--and the fault would then be mine of doing
what I had been warned to avoid. It might be safer in every way to wait
till Philip paid his visit, and he and papa had been introduced to each
other and charmed with each other. Could Helena herself have arrived at
a wiser conclusion? I declare I felt proud of my own discretion.

In this enjoyable frame of mind I was disturbed by a woman's voice. The
tone was a tone of distress, and the words reached my ears from the end
of the garden: "Please, miss, let me in."

A shrubbery marks the limit of our little bit of pleasure-ground. On the
other side of it there is a cottage standing on the edge of the
common. The most good-natured woman in the world lives here. She is our
laundress--married to a stupid young fellow named Molly, and blessed
with a plump baby as sweet-tempered at herself. Thinking it likely that
the piteous voice which had disturbed me might be the voice of Mrs.
Molly, I was astonished to hear her appealing to anybody (perhaps to
me?) to "let her in." So I passed through the shrubbery, wondering
whether the gate had been locked during my absence in London. No; it was
as easy