“My sister means,” said Hilary, “that as we are not likely to have little boys half killed in the field every day, she trusts you will not be running away again as you did this morning.  She feels sure that you would not do such a thing, putting us all to so great annoyance and uneasiness, for any less cause than such as happened to-day.  You promise that?”

“Yes, Miss Hilary.”

“Then we quite forgive you as regards ourselves.  Nay”—­feeling in spite of Selina’s warning nudge, that she had hardly been kind enough—­“we rather praise than blame you, Elizabeth.  And if you like to stay with us and will do your best to improve, we are willing to keep you as our servant.”

“Thank you ma’am.  Thank you, Miss Hilary.  Yes, I’ll stop.”

She said no more—­but sighed a great sigh, as if her mind were relieved—­("So,” thought Hilary, “she was not so indifferent to us as we imagined")—­and bustled back into her kitchen.

“Now for the clothing of her,” observed Miss Leaf, also looking much relieved that the decision was over.  “You know what we agreed upon; and there is certainly no time to be lost.  Hilary, my dear, suppose you bring down your brown merino?” Hilary went without a word.

People who inhabit the same house, eat, sit, and sleep together—­loving one another and sympathizing with one another, ever so deeply and dearly—­nevertheless inevitably have momentary seasons when the intense solitude in which we all live, and must expect ever to live, at the depth of our being, forces itself painfully upon the heart.  Johanna must have had many such seasons when Hilary was a child; Hilary had one now.

She unfolded the old frock, and took out of its pocket, a hiding place at once little likely to be searched, and harmless if discovered, a poor little memento of that happy midsummer day.

    “Dear Miss Hilary.  To-morrow, then, I shall come. 
        Yours truly, Robert Lyon.”

The only scrap of note she had ever received; he always wrote to Johanna; as regularly as ever, or more so, now Ascott was gone; but only to Johanna.  She read over the two lines, wondered where she should keep them now that Johanna might not notice them; and then recoiled, as if the secret were a wrong to that dear sister who loved her so well.

“But nothing makes me love her less; nothing ever could.  She thinks me quite happy, as I am; and yet—­oh, if I did not miss him so!”

And the aching, aching want which sometimes came over began again.  Let us not blame her.  God made all our human needs.  God made love.  Not merely affection but actual love—­the necessity to seek and find out some other being, not another but the complement of one’s self—­the “other half,” who brings rest and strength for weakness, sympathy in aspiration, and tenderness for tenderness, as no other person ever can.  Perhaps, even in marriage, this love is seldom found, and it is possible in all lives to do without it.  Johanna had done so.  But then she had been young, and was now growing old; and Hilary was only twenty, with a long life before her.  Poor child, let us not blame her!