‘John says that he shall return here in August,’ Miss Le Smyrger said as Patience was sitting with her in the parlour at Oxney Colne, on the morning after that gentleman’s departure.

‘He told me so himself,’ said Patience; and as she spoke her round dark eyes assumed a look of more than ordinary self-will.  If Miss Le Smyrger had intended to carry the conversation any further she changed her mind as she looked at her companion.  Then, as I said, the summer ran by, and towards the close of the warm days of July, Miss Le Smyrger, sitting in the same chair in the same room, again took up the conversation.

’I got a letter from John this morning.  He says that he shall be here on the third.’

‘Does he?’

‘He is very punctual to the time he named.’

‘Yes; I fancy that he is a punctual man,’ said Patience.

‘I hope that you will be glad to see him,’ said Miss Le Smyrger.

‘Very glad to see him,’ said Patience, with a bold clear voice; and then the conversation was again dropped, and nothing further was said till after Captain Broughton’s second arrival in the parish.

Four months had then passed since his departure, and during that time Miss Woolsworthy had performed all her usual daily duties in their accustomed course.  No one could discover that she had been less careful in her household matters than had been her wont, less willing to go among her poor neighbours, or less assiduous in her attentions to her father.  But not the less was there a feeling in the minds of those around her that some great change had come upon her.  She would sit during the long summer evenings on a certain spot outside the parsonage orchard, at the top of a small sloping field in which their solitary cow was always pastured, with a book on her knees before her, but rarely reading.  There she would sit, with the beautiful view down to the winding river below her, watching the setting sun, and thinking, thinking, thinking—­thinking of something of which she had never spoken.  Often would Miss Le Smyrger come upon her there, and sometimes would pass her even without a word; but never—­never once did she dare to ask of the matter of her thoughts.  But she knew the matter well enough.  No confession was necessary to inform her that Patience Woolsworthy was in love with John Broughton—­ay, in love, to the full and entire loss of her whole heart.

On one evening she was so sitting till the July sun had fallen and hidden himself for the night, when her father came upon her as he returned from one of his rambles on the moor.  ‘Patty,’ he said, ’you are always sitting there now.  Is it not late?  Will you not be cold?’

‘No papa,’ she said, ‘I shall not be cold.’

’But won’t you come to the house?  I miss you when you come in so late that there’s no time to say a word before we go to bed.’

She got up and followed him into the parsonage, and when they were in the sitting-room together, and the door was closed, she came up to him and kissed him.  ‘Papa,’ she said, ’would it make you very unhappy if I were to leave you?’