"Hush! you'll wake Miss Harriet, I daresay she—she's asleep still!—you will go now, Ann, please. I'm not unhappy—why, here's one to begin with who will always think the best of me!"
"The very best—as you've been the very best and the goodest to me, who used to snap you so at first, and feel jealous like, because they put you over me—but you won't mind that now?"
"No—no."
"And, Mattie, you don't want to go away and see nobody any more—to be quite alone and hear nothing of anybody? I may come and see you?"
"Yes—to be sure."
"And you'll write and tell me directly where you are."
"Ah! where I am. Yes, you shall know that first. And when I can prove to him that I have always been honest and true, I'll see him and his again, not before."
"And I shall call and tell you all the news—listen at all the keyholes to hear what they've got to talk about."
"I hope not. But get up now, Ann, and go down-stairs, or they'll suspect something. I'll send for the box presently, when I'm settled."
Ann rose with clenched hands and swollen eyes.