"I have had no use for love," said Miss Maybrick sternly. "It is the source of a good deal of misery and crime."
"Not the right sort. The love that comes from God."
Miss Maybrick deliberately turned to other topics.
When Anstice came away, she felt that sometimes the desires of the heart turned to dust and ashes, when they were obtained. She asked the Rector if he would go and see Miss Maybrick as often as he could. He had at last got a rough pony which took him over the Fells to see some of his far away parishioners.
"You will know what to say to her, and she likes you. I have the greatest pity for her."
"She is not my parishioner," he replied, "now she has left her farm, but I will go as a friend. I think perhaps that God is slowly leading her towards Himself. Her goal down here has been reached, and is evidently not satisfying her."
Then one day Anstice was astounded by a visit from Louise. She appeared one morning about twelve o'clock, and Anstice kept her to lunch.
"Are you having your holiday now?" Anstice asked her.
"No," she said; "haven't you heard? Uncle is very ill and I have come home to him. He wrote and asked me to do so. And I came back last week, and do you know, I am giving up my work in town for the time, and am going to look after him and cheer him up? I never knew that he was so fond of me. His housekeeper is very good, and makes him comfortable, but he is funny and old-fashioned and won't make a friend of her, and he is pounds better since I came. He got influenza, and was not getting up his strength. He wasn't able to browse amongst his beloved books, and so got moped and thought he was going to die. His doctor thought he was, he told me so."
Louise looked and spoke like a different creature. She was tastefully dressed, had lost her discontented expression, and was quite a pretty-looking girl. Anstice was unfeignedly glad to see the change in her.