on for another sentence, and then decided that it
must be you. There is a big Elinor written across my sermon paper." He
laughed, but he was a little moved, to see, after the "coolness," the
little girl whom he had christened come back to her old friends again.

"She has come to ask us to go and see her things, papa," said Mrs.
Hudson, twinkling an eye to get rid of a suspicion of a tear.

"Am I to come, too?" said the Rector; and thus the little incident of
the reconciliation was got over, to the great content of all.

Elinor reflected to herself that they were really kind people, as she
went out again into the grey afternoon where everything was getting up
for rain. She made up her mind she would just have time to run into the
Hills', at the Hurst, and leave her message, and so get home before the
storm began. The clouds lay low like a dark grey hood over the fir-trees
and moorland shaggy tops of the downs all round. There was not a break
anywhere in the consistent grey, and the air, always so brisk, had
fallen still with that ominous lull that comes over everything before
a convulsion of nature. Some birds were still hurrying home into the
depths of the copses with a frightened straightness of flight, as if
they were afraid they would not get back in time, and all the insects
that are so gay with their humming and booming had disappeared under
leaves and stones and grasses. Elinor saw a bee burrowing deep in
the waxen trumpet of a foxglove, as if taking shelter, as she walked
quickly past. The Hills--there were two middle-aged sisters of them,
with an old mother, too old for such diversion as the inspection of
wedding-clothes, in the background--would scarcely let Elinor go out
again after they had accepted her invitation with rapture. "I was just
wondering where I should see the new fashions," said Miss Hill, "for
though we are not going to be married we must begin to think about our
winter things----" "And this will be such an opportunity," said Miss
Susan, "and so good of you to come yourself to ask us."

"What has she come to ask you to," said old Mrs. Hill; "the wedding? I
told you girls, I was sure you would not be left out. Why, I knew her
mother before she was married. I have known them all, man and boy, for
nearer sixty than fifty years--before her mother was born! To have left
you out would have been ridiculous. Yes, yes, Elinor, my dear; tell your
mother they will come--delighted! They have been thinkin