"On Monday night, if I can be ready by that time."
"Why, what have you to get ready?" said Clara.
"I must not appear in a forester's dress, my little Clara. I can wear that with a gun in my hand, but not with a pen: so I must go to Lymington and see what a tailor can do for me."
"You will feel as strange in a secretary's dress as I did in boys' clothes," said Clara. "Perhaps I may," said Edward, although he felt that such would not be the case, having been accustomed to much better clothes when at Arnwood than what were usually worn by secretaries; and this remembrance brought back Arnwood in its train, and Edward became silent and pensive.
Patience observed it, and after a time said—
"You will be able to watch over your sisters, Mr. Armitage, as well here, almost, as if you were at the cottage. You do not return till to-morrow? How did you come over?"
"I rode the pony Billy, Mistress Patience."
"Why do you call her Mistress Patience, Edward?" said Clara. "You call me Clara; why not call her Patience?"
"You forget that I am only a forester, Clara," replied Edward, with a grave smile.
"No, you are a secretary now," replied Clara.