ave sent for Godfrey. But dear me, dear me, Angelica, he seems very
young, very young!'

And Angel said, in the same quiet tones, that Godfrey was nearly
fourteen, and how fortunate it was for him to have the chance of being
under Captain Maitland; they would be so happy to think of him on board
the _Mermaid_. And when she went to find Betty, Mr. Crayshaw took off
his spectacles and wiped them and remarked, as he had done on that past
Christmas Day:

'Angelica is a good girl, a very good girl!'

After that there was no time at all for thinking. Angel said
afterwards that her head seemed to be quite full of nothing but
Godfrey's shirts, and a very good thing it was for all of them. Only
while she stitched and sorted and packed, she had all the time a
feeling that she ought to be saying something to Godfrey now, before he
went out into the great terrible world of which she knew so little,
something that would help him and strengthen him in the days to come.
But there never came a minute for saying it until the very last
evening, when Godfrey's box was packed, and his last visits paid in the
village, where the old women cried over him in his uniform. The
captain had gone for a walk with Mr. Crayshaw, Penny was getting supper
ready, and Angel and Betty and Godfrey found themselves together in the
garden, really with nothing more to do.

It was the twilight hour, which the two young aunts had always given up
to Godfrey. Betty used to look grave about it in the old days, and say
she was afraid it was very idle; but she always gave in, and joined
Angel and Godfrey when they paced up and down the garden walk, or sat
in Miss Jane's arbour, or watched the stars come out from the parlour
window, or squeezed into the big arm-chair before the fire. They were
in the garden this evening, for it was mild and still, with autumn
scents in the air and stars coming out behind a misty haze. And now
surely was the time for the last words, the tender advice and warnings
that were to go with Godfrey out into the world. But somehow Angel and
Betty never spoke them after all. Instead they talked about the past;
of Godfrey's first coming to Oakfield--'horrid little wretch that I
was,' said the nephew--with the curly head, which had only reached
Angel's elbow then, rubbing fondly against her shoulder; of Kiah's
coming home, and the captain's first visit, and that Christmas party at
the Place.

'And do you remember,' Godfrey said, '