Juliet was pleased at the near prospect of the change, for she had naturally dreaded being ill in the limited accommodation of the lodge.  She formally thanked the two crushed and rumpled little angels, begged them to visit her often, and proceeded to make her very small preparations with a fitful cheerfulness.  Something might come of the change, she flattered herself.  She had always indulged a vague fancy that Dorothy was devising help for her; and it was in part the disappointment of nothing having yet justified the expectation, that had spoiled her behavior to her.  But for a long time Dorothy had been talking of Paul in a different tone, and that very morning had spoken of him even with some admiration:  it might be a prelude to something!  Most likely Dorothy knew more than she chose to say!  She dared ask no question for the dread of finding herself mistaken.  She preferred the ignorance that left room for hope.  But she did not like all Dorothy said in his praise; for her tone, if not her words, seemed to imply some kind of change in him.  He might have his faults, she said to herself, like other men, but she had not yet discovered them; and any change would, in her eyes, be for the worse.  Would she ever see her own old Paul again?

One day as Faber was riding at a good round trot along one of the back streets of Glaston, approaching his own house, he saw Amanda, who still took every opportunity of darting out at an open door, running to him with outstretched arms, right in the face of Niger, just as if she expected the horse to stop and take her up.  Unable to trust him so well as his dear old Ruber, he dismounted, and taking her in his arms, led Niger to his stable.  He learned from her that she was staying with the Wingfolds, and took her home, after which his visits to the rectory were frequent.

The Wingfolds could not fail to remark the tenderness with which he regarded the child.  Indeed it soon became clear that it was for her sake he came to them.  The change that had begun in him, the loss of his self-regard following on the loss of Juliet, had left a great gap in his conscious being:  into that gap had instantly begun to shoot the all-clothing greenery of natural affection.  His devotion to her did not at first cause them any wonderment.  Every body loved the little Amanda, they saw in him only another of the child’s conquests, and rejoiced in the good the love might do him.  Even when they saw him looking fixedly at her with eyes over clear, they set it down to the frustrated affection of the lonely, wifeless, childless man.  But by degrees they did come to wonder a little:  his love seemed to grow almost a passion.  Strange thoughts began to move in their minds, looking from the one to the other of this love and the late tragedy.