There were tears in Sylvia’s eyes, although the feeling in her heart was rather one of relief.  She had made a fair offer, and it had been treated with silent contempt.  A few days afterwards, her father came in from Monkshaven market, and dropped out, among other pieces of news, that he had met Kinraid, who was bound for his own home at Cullercoats.  He had desired his respects to Mrs. Robson and her daughter; and had bid Robson say that he would have come up to Haytersbank to wish them good-by, but that as he was pressed for time, he hoped they would excuse him.  But Robson did not think it worth while to give this long message of mere politeness.  Indeed, as it did not relate to business, and was only sent to women, Robson forgot all about it, pretty nearly as soon as it was uttered.  So Sylvia went about fretting herself for one or two days, at her hero’s apparent carelessness of those who had at any rate treated him more like a friend than an acquaintance of only a few weeks’ standing; and then, her anger quenching her incipient regard, she went about her daily business pretty much as though he had never been.  He had gone away out of her sight into the thick mist of unseen life from which he had emerged—­gone away without a word, and she might never see him again.  But still there was a chance of her seeing him when he came to marry Molly Corney.  Perhaps she should be bridesmaid, and then what a pleasant merry time the wedding-day would be!  The Corneys were all such kind people, and in their family there never seemed to be the checks and restraints by which her own mother hedged her round.  Then there came an overwhelming self-reproaching burst of love for that ‘own mother’; a humiliation before her slightest wish, as penance for the moment’s unspoken treason; and thus Sylvia was led to request her cousin Philip to resume his lessons in so meek a manner, that he slowly and graciously acceded to a request which he was yearning to fulfil all the time.

During the ensuing winter, all went on in monotonous regularity at Haytersbank Farm for many weeks.  Hepburn came and went, and thought Sylvia wonderfully improved in docility and sobriety; and perhaps also he noticed the improvement in her appearance.  For she was at that age when a girl changes rapidly, and generally for the better.  Sylvia shot up into a tall young woman; her eyes deepened in colour, her face increased in expression, and a sort of consciousness of unusual good looks gave her a slight tinge of coquettish shyness with the few strangers whom she ever saw.  Philip hailed her interest in geography as another sign of improvement.  He had brought back his book of maps to the farm; and there he sat on many an evening teaching his cousin, who had strange fancies respecting the places about which she wished to learn, and was coolly indifferent to the very existence of other towns, and countries, and seas far more famous in story.  She was occasionally wilful, and at times very contemptuous as to the superior knowledge