“Brother, I want your arm for a turn in the shrubbery.”
Mrs Rowland’s bonnet was visible as she looked up to the window. She saw the braids of the hair of the young ladies, and her voice was rather less soft as she called again, “Philip, do you hear? I want you.”
It was impossible to seem not to hear. Mr Enderby was obliged to go: but he left his hat behind him, as a sort of pledge that he meant to limit himself to the single turn proposed.
For various reasons, the young ladies were all disinclined to speak after he had left them. Miss Young was the first to move. She rose to go to her desk for something,—the desk in which Margaret kept the books she used in this place. Ever on the watch to save Maria the trouble of moving about, which was actual pain to her, Margaret flew to see if she could not fetch what was wanted: but Miss Young was already looking into the desk. Her eye caught the pretty new little volume which lay there. She took it up, found it was a volume of Tieck, and saw on the fly-leaf, in the well-known handwriting, “From PE.” One warm beam of hope shot through her heart:— how could it be otherwise,—the book lying in her desk, and thus addressed? But it was only one moment’s joy. The next instant’s reflection, and the sight of Margaret’s German exercise, on which the book had lain, revealed the real case to her. In sickness of heart, she would, upon impulse, have put back the book, and concealed the incident: but she was not sure but that Margaret had seen the volume, and she was sure of what her own duty was. With a smile and a steady voice she held out the book to Margaret, and said:
“Here is something for you, Margaret, which looks a little like one of the hidden, and gentle, and mysterious tokens Mr Enderby has been talking about. Here it is, lying among your books; and I think it was not with them when you last left your seat.”
Margaret blushed with an emotion which seemed to the one who knew her best to be too strong to be mere surprise. She looked doubtful for a moment about the book being meant for her. Its German aspect was conclusive against its being designed for Hester: but Miss Young,—was it certain that the volume was not hers? She asked this; but Maria replied, as her head was bent over her desk:
“There is no doubt about it. I am sure. It is nobody’s but yours.”
Some one proposed to resume the reading. The ‘Hymn to Heavenly Beauty’ was finished, but no remark followed. Each was thinking of something else. More common subjects suited their present mood better. It was urged upon Hester that she should be one of the daily party; and, her lonely fancies being for the hour dispersed, she agreed.
“But,” she observed, “other people’s visits alter the case entirely. I do not see how study is to go on if any one may come in from either house, as Mr Enderby did to-day. It is depriving Miss Young of her leisure, too, and making use of her apartment in a way that she may well object to.”
“I am here, out of school hours, only upon sufferance,” replied Miss Young. “I never call the room mine without this explanation.”