"I must know what day you can go to the Rectory before I can settle anything. Of course your home will be with us now, Hermione."
She did not thank him, but said simply, "When you are at Westford."
"I hope—always. It would have been his wish for you."
Hermione went away, offering no response. "Impracticable girl!" he muttered impatiently. She might almost have heard the words. At the door she lingered to say, "Mr. Fitzalan asked me to go to the Rectory to-morrow. You can arrange what you like about your own plans."
[CHAPTER XIII.]
DEGREES OF GOODNESS.
"THERE'S something stopping at the hotel, Mittie—look!" cried Julia, who was at the farther end of the room, while Mittie sat close to the open window.
The child skipped out upon the balcony, and cried in shrill tones, "It's Uncle Harvey!"
"Now, Julia, pray don't rush madly out, and—" Francesca's exhortation came to an abrupt conclusion, fur Julia was gone.
"She wouldn't hear you, mother," commented Mittie, standing in the open window, while a slight breeze lifted her clouds of flaxen hair and swept them round her face. "Aunt Julia always does scamper when Uncle Harvey comes. I think she's too big to scamper, ever so much. But I like him, too—don't you? I like him better than Aunt Julia, 'cause he doesn't get cross."