Mrs. Little observed this one day, and pointed it out to Jael.  “Oh,” said Jael, “take no notice.  You know he wanted Mr. Henry to stay quietly here and be his heir.”

“And so did I. But his very name seems to—­”

“He likes him well, for all that, ma’am; only he won’t own it yet.  You know what Squire is.”

“The Squire you should say, dear.  But, ‘Mr. Raby’ is better still.  As a rule, avoid all small titles:  the doctor, the squire, the baronet, the mayor.”

Jael seized this handle, and, by putting questions to her teacher, got her away from the dangerous topic.

Ever on the watch, and occupied in many ways with Mrs. Little, Jael began to recover resignation; but this could not be without an occasional paroxysm of grief.

These she managed to hide from Mrs. Little.

But one day that lady surprised her crying.  She stood and looked at her a moment, then sat down quietly beside her and took her hand.  Jael started, and feared discovery.

“My child,” said Mrs. Little, “if you have lost a father, you have gained a mother; and then, as to your sister, why my Henry is gone to the very same country; yet, you see, I do not give way to sorrow.  As soon as he writes, I will beg him to make inquiries for Patty, and send them home if they are not doing well.”  Then Mrs. Little kissed Jael, and coaxed her and rocked with her, and Jael’s tears began to flow, no longer for her own great grief, but for this mother, who was innocently consoling her, unconscious of the blow that must one day fall upon herself.

So matters went on pretty smoothly; only one morning, speaking of Henry, Mrs. Little surprised a look of secret intelligence between her brother and Jael Dence.  She made no remark at the time, but she puzzled in secret over it, and began at last to watch the pair.

She asked Raby at dinner, one day, when she might hope to hear from Henry.

“I don’t know,” said he, and looked at Jael Dence like a person watching for orders.

Mrs. Little observed this, and turned keenly round to Jael.

“Oh,” said Jael, “the doctor—­I beg pardon, Dr. Amboyne—­can tell you that better than I can.  It is a long way to Australia.”

“How you send me from one to another,” said Mrs. Little, speaking very slowly.

They made no reply to that, and Mrs. Little said no more.  But she pondered all this.  She wrote to Dr. Amboyne, and asked him why no letter had come from Henry.

Dr. Amboyne wrote back that, even if he had gone in a steamboat, there was hardly time for a letter to come back:  but he had gone in a sailing-vessel.  “Give him three months and a half to get there, and two months for his letters to come back.”

In this same letter he told her he was glad to hear she was renewing her youth like an eagle, but reminded her it would entail some consequences more agreeable to him than to her.