’Your father, I presume, Miss Hale.  I see it by the likeness.  I am sure I am very glad to see you, sir, and so will the Vicar be.’

Margaret explained that it was not her father, and stammered out the fact of his death; wondering all the time how Mr. Hale could have borne coming to revisit Helstone, if it had been as the Vicar’s lady supposed.  She did not hear what Mrs. Hepworth was saying, and left it to Mr. Bell to reply, looking round, meanwhile, for her old acquaintances.

’Ah!  I see you would like to take a class, Miss Hale.  I know it by myself.  First class stand up for a parsing lesson with Miss Hale.’

Poor Margaret, whose visit was sentimental, not in any degree inspective, felt herself taken in; but as in some way bringing her in contact with little eager faces, once well-known, and who had received the solemn rite of baptism from her father, she sate down, half losing herself in tracing out the changing features of the girls, and holding Susan’s hand for a minute or two, unobserved by all, while the first class sought for their books, and the Vicar’s lady went as near as a lady could towards holding Mr. Bell by the button, while she explained the Phonetic system to him, and gave him a conversation she had had with the Inspector about it.

Margaret bent over her book, and seeing nothing but that—­hearing the buzz of children’s voices, old times rose up, and she thought of them, and her eyes filled with tears, till all at once there was a pause—­one of the girls was stumbling over the apparently simple word ‘a,’ uncertain what to call it.

‘A, an indefinite article,’ said Margaret, mildly.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said the Vicar’s wife, all eyes and ears; ’but we are taught by Mr. Milsome to call “a” an—­who can remember?’

‘An adjective absolute,’ said half-a-dozen voices at once.  And Margaret sate abashed.  The children knew more than she did.  Mr. Bell turned away, and smiled.

Margaret spoke no more during the lesson.  But after it was over, she went quietly round to one or two old favourites, and talked to them a little.  They were growing out of children into great girls; passing out of her recollection in their rapid development, as she, by her three years’ absence, was vanishing from theirs.  Still she was glad to have seen them all again, though a tinge of sadness mixed itself with her pleasure.  When school was over for the day, it was yet early in the summer afternoon; and Mrs. Hepworth proposed to Margaret that she and Mr. Bell should accompany her to the parsonage, and see the—­the word ‘improvements’ had half slipped out of her mouth, but she substituted the more cautious term ‘alterations’ which the present Vicar was making.  Margaret did not care a straw about seeing the alterations, which jarred upon her fond recollection of what her home had been; but she longed to see the old place once more, even though she shivered away from the pain which she knew she should feel.