How did Fanny know that it was coming?  She did know it, though he had said nothing to her beyond his usual parish communications.  He was often with her in the two schools; often returned with her in the sweet Spring evenings along the lane that led back to the rectory from Cumberly Green; often inspected with her the little amounts of parish charities and entries of pence collected from such parents as could pay.  He had never reverted to that other subject.  But yet Fanny knew that it was coming, and when she had questioned Harry about his troubles she had been thinking also of her own.

It was now the middle of May, and the Spring was giving way to the early Summer almost before the Spring had itself arrived.  It is so, I think, in these latter years.  The sharpness of March prolongs itself almost through April, and then, while we are still hoping for the Spring, there falls upon us suddenly a bright, dangerous, delicious gleam of Summer.  The lane from Cumberly Green was no longer muddy, and Fanny could go backward and forward between the parsonage and her distant school without that wading for which feminine apparel is so unsuited.  One evening, just as she had finished her work, Mr. Saul’s head appeared at the school-door, and he asked her whether she were about to return home.  As soon as she saw his eye and heard his voice, she feared that the day was come.  She was prepared with no new answer, and could only give the answer that she had given before.  She had always told herself that it was impossible; and as to all other questions, about her own heart or such like, she had put such questions away from her as being unnecessary, and, perhaps, unseemly.  The thing was impossible, and should therefore be put away out of thought, as a matter completed and at an end.  But now the time was come, and she almost wished that she had been more definite in her own resolutions.

“Yes, Mr. Saul, I have just done.”

“I will walk with you, if you will let me.”  Then Fanny spoke some words of experienced wisdom to two or three girls, in order that she might show to them, to him, and to herself that she was quite collected.  She lingered in the room for a few minutes, and was very wise and very experienced.  “I am quite ready now, Mr. Saul.”  So saying, she came forth upon the green lane, and he followed her.

Chapter XXVII

Cumberly Lane Without The Mud

They walked on in silence for a little way, and then he asked her some question about Florence Burton.  Fanny told him that she had heard from Stratton two days since, and that Florence was well.

“I liked her very much,” said Mr. Saul.

“So did we all.  She is coming here again in the Autumn; so it will not be very long before you see her again.”

“How that may be I cannot tell, but if you see her that will be of more consequence.”

“We shall all see her, of course.”