"Mamma would not let me. O Mr. Rhys!—we have been kept apart. I could not even see her when I came away."
"Why?"
"Mamma—she was afraid of my influence over her."
"Is it possible!"
"Julia was going on well—setting her face to do right. Now—I do not know how it will be. Even our letters are overlooked."
"I need not ask how your mother is. I suppose she is trying to save one of her daughters for the world."
Eleanor's thoughts swept a wide course in a few minutes; remembered whose hand instrumentality had saved her from such a fate and had striven for Julia. With a sigh that was part sorrow and part gratitude, Eleanor laid her head softly on Mr. Rhys's shoulder. With such tenderness as one gives to a child, and yet rarer, because deeper and graver, she was made at home there.
"Don't you want to take a walk to the chapel?"
"O yes!"—But she was held fast still.
"And shall we give sister Balliol the pleasure of our company to tea, as we come back?"