“Yours most sincerely,

“Hannah Elton.”

Hugh refolded the letter, and laid it down without remark.  Harry had left the room.

“Isn’t it a bore?” said Euphra.

Hugh answered only by a look.  A pause followed.

“Who is Mrs. Elton?” he said at last.

“Oh, a good-hearted creature enough.  Frightfully prosy.”

“But that is a well-written letter?”

“Oh, yes.  She is famed for her letter-writing; and, I believe, practises every morning on a slate.  It is the only thing that redeems her from absolute stupidity.”

Euphra, with her taper fore-finger, tapped the table-cloth impatiently, and shifted back in her chair, as if struggling with an inward annoyance.

“And what sort of person is Lady Emily?” asked Hugh.

“I have never seen her.  Some blue-eyed milk-maid with a title, I suppose.  And in a consumption, too!  I presume the dear girl is as religious as the old one. —­ Good heavens! what shall we do?” she burst out at length; and, rising from her chair, she paced about the room hurriedly, but all the time with a gliding kind of footfall, that would have shaken none but the craziest floor.

“Dear Euphra!” Hugh ventured to say, “never mind.  Let us try to make the best of it.”

She stopped in her walk, turned towards him, smiled as if ashamed and delighted at the same moment, and slid out of the room.  Had Euphra been the same all through, she could hardly have smiled so without being in love with Hugh.

That morning he sought her again in her room.  They talked over their versions of Dante.  Hugh’s was certainly the best, for he was more practised in such things than Euphra.  He showed her many faults, which she at once perceived to be faults, and so rose in his estimation.  But at the same time there were individual lines and passages of hers, which he considered not merely better than the corresponding lines and passages, but better than any part of his version.  This he was delighted to say; and she seemed as delighted that he should think so.  A great part of the morning was spent thus.

“I cannot stay longer,” said Hugh.

“Let us read for an hour, then, after we come up stairs to-night.”

“With more pleasure than I dare to say.”

“But you mean what you do say?”

“You can doubt it no more than myself.”

Yet he did not like Euphra’s making the proposal.  No more did he like the flippant, almost cruel way in which she referred to Lady Emily’s illness.  But he put it down to annoyance and haste —­ got over it somehow —­ anyhow; and began to feel that if she were a devil he could not help loving her, and would not help it if he could.  The hope of meeting her alone that night, gave him spirit and energy with Harry; and the poor boy was more cheery and active than he had been for some time.  He thought his big brother was going to love him again as at the first.  Hugh’s treatment of his pupil might still have seemed kind from another, but Harry felt it a great change in him.