‘"And the evening and the morning were the first day,"’ were my waking words when I opened my eyes; for in the inward as well as the outward creation, in hearts as well as worlds, all things become new under the grace of such miracle.  I was not the same woman that I had been yesterday, neither should I ever be the same again.  I seemed as though I were in accord with all the harmonies of nature.  ’And surely God saw that it was good,’ ought to be written upon all true and faithful earthly attachments.  I was expecting Mr. Hamilton, and yet it gave me a sort of shock when I saw him coming up the road:  he was walking very fast, with his head bent, but his face was set in the direction of the cottage.

I sat down by the window and took out some work, but my hands trembled so that I was compelled to lay it aside.  It was not that I was afraid of what he might say to me, for my heart had its welcome ready, but natural womanly timidity caused the slight fluttering of my pulses.

The moments seemed long before I heard the click of the gate, before the firm regular footsteps crunched the gravel walk; then came his knock at my door, and I rose to greet him.  But the moment I saw his face a sudden anxiety seized me.  What had happened?  What made him look so pale and embarrassed, so strangely unlike himself?  This was not the greeting I expected.  This was not how we ought to meet on this morning of all mornings.

As he shook hands with me quickly and rather nervously, he seemed to avoid my eyes.  He walked to the window, picked a spray of jasmine, and began pulling it to pieces, all the time he talked.  As for me, I sat down again and took up my work:  he should not see that I felt his coldness, that he had disappointed me.

‘I have come very early, I am afraid,’ he began, ’but I thought I ought to let you know.  Mrs. Hanbury’s little girl, the lame one, Jessie, has got badly burnt,—­some carelessness or other; but they are an ignorant set, and the child will need your care.’

‘I will go at once.  Where do they live?’ But somehow as I asked the question I felt as though my voice had lost all tone and sounded like Miss Darrell’s.

He told me, and then gave me the necessary instructions.  ’Janet Coombe, a servant at the Man and Plough, is ill too, and they sent up for me this morning; it seems a touch of low fever,—­nothing really infectious, though; but the men from the soap-works are having their bean-feast, and all the folks are too busy to pay Janet much attention.’

‘I will see about her,’ I returned.  ’Are those the only cases, Mr. Hamilton?’ He looked round at me then, as though my quiet matter-of-fact answer had surprised him, and for a moment he surveyed me gravely and wistfully; then he seemed to rouse himself with an effort.

’Yes, those are the only cases at present.  Thank you, I shall be much obliged if you will attend to them.  Little Jessie is a very delicate child:  things may go hardly with her.’  Then he stopped, picked another spray of jasmine, and pulled off the little starry flowers remorselessly.