The idea of exchanging the dull monotony of Miss Bagshot’s establishment for such a home as Thornleigh, with the friend I loved as dearly as a sister, was more than delightful to me, to say nothing of a salary which would enable me to buy my own clothes and leave a margin for an annual remittance to my father.  I talked the subject over with him, and he wrote immediately to Miss Bagshot, requesting her to waive the half-year’s notice of the withdrawal of my services, to which she was fairly entitled.  This she consented very kindly to do; and instead of going back to Albury Lodge, I went to Thornleigh.

Mr. and Mrs. Darrell had started for Paris when I arrived, and the house seemed very empty and quiet.  My dear girl came into the hall to receive me, and led me off to her pretty sitting-room, where there was a bright fire, and where, she told me, she spent almost the whole of her time now.

‘And are you really pleased to come to me, Mary?’ she asked, when our first greetings were over.

’More than pleased, my darling.  It seems almost too bright a life for me.  I can hardly believe in it yet.’

’But perhaps you will seen get as tired of Thornleigh as ever you did of Albury Lodge.  It will be rather a dull kind of life, you know; only you and I and the old servants.’

’I shall never feel dull with you, Milly.  But tell me how all this came about.  How was it you didn’t go abroad with Mr. and Mrs. Darrell?’

’Ah, that is rather strange, isn’t it?  The truth of the matter is, that Augusta did not want me to go with them.  She does not like me, Mary, that is the real truth, through she affects to be very fond of me, and has contrived to make my father think she is so.  What is there that she cannot make him think?  She does not like me; and she is never quite happy or at her ease when I am with her.  She had been growing tired of Thornleigh for some time when the winter began; and she looked so pale and ill, that my father got anxious about her.  The doctor here treated her in the usual stereotyped way, and made very light of her ailments, but recommended change of air and scene.  Papa proposed going to Scarborough; but somehow or other Augusta contrived to change Scarborough into Paris, and they are to spend the winter and spring there, and perhaps go on to Germany in the summer.  At first papa was very anxious to take me with them; but Augusta dropped some little hints—­it would interrupt my studies, and unsettle me, and so on.  You know I am rather proud, Mary, so you can imagine I was not slow to understand her.  I said I would much prefer to stay at Thornleigh, and proposed immediately that you should come to me and be my companion, and help me on with my studies.’

‘My dearest, how good of you to wish that!’