’Then I hope that Horace and Edward will save each other from the same fate,’ said Elizabeth; ’I do not like to see a sister made such a slave as you have been all your life.’

’Wait till Horace and Edward are at home in the holidays before you talk of slavery,’ said Anne; ’there will be five slaves and two masters, that will be all the difference.’

‘Well are the male kind called barons in heraldry,’ said Elizabeth; ’there is no denying that they are a lordly race; but I think I would have sent Mr. Rupert up the hill himself, rather than go before breakfast, with a day’s journey before me.’

‘Suppose he would not go?’ said Anne.

‘Let him lose his Prayer-book, then,’ said Elizabeth.

‘But if I had rather fetch it for him?’ said Anne.

‘I can only answer that there are no slaves as willing as sisters,’ said Elizabeth.

The two cousins had a pleasant morning walk up the hill, enjoying the freshness of the morning air, and watching the various symptoms of wakening in the town.  They carried the keys of the church with them, as no clerk had as yet been appointed, and they were still in Mr. Woodbourne’s possession, so that it was not necessary to call anyone to open the doors for them.

Whilst Anne was searching for the Prayer-book, Elizabeth stood in the aisle, her eyes fixed on the bright red cross in the centre window over the Altar.  The sun-beams were lighting it up gloriously, and from it, her gaze fell upon the Table of Commandments, between it and the Altar.  Presently, Anne came and stood by her side in silence.  ‘Anne,’ said Elizabeth, after a few minutes, ’I will tell you what I have been thinking of.  On the day when Horace laid the first stone of this church, two years ago, something put me, I am sorry to say, into one of my old fits of ill temper.  It was the last violent passion I ever was in; I either learnt to control them, or outgrew them.  And now, may this affair at the Consecration be the last of my self-will and self-conceit; for indeed there is much that is fearfully wrong in me to be corrected, before I can dare to think of the Confirmation.’

Perhaps we cannot take leave of Elizabeth Woodbourne at a better moment, therefore we will say no more of her, or of the other inhabitants of the Vicarage, but make a sudden transition to the conversation, which Anne had hoped to enjoy on the journey back to Merton Hall.

She had told her father of nearly all her adventures, had given Fido’s history more fully, informed Rupert of all that he had missed, and was proceeding with an account of Helen.  ‘Really,’ said she, ’I have much more hope of her being happy at home, than I had at first.’

‘I will answer for it that she will be happy enough,’ said Rupert; ’she has been living on flummery for the last half-year, and you cannot expect her to be contented with mutton-chops just at first.’

’Helen does not find so much fault with the mutton-chops as with the pepper Lizzie adds to them,’ said Anne.