Can he, then, mean our acquaintance to cease? Should we be a hindrance in his busy, useful life--such a frivolous family as ours? It may be so. Yet I fear papa will be hurt. This afternoon, though it was Sunday, I could not stay in the house or garden, but went out, far out upon the moor, and walked till I was weary. Then I sat me down upon a heather-bush, all in a heap, my arms clasped round my knees, trying to think out this hard question--what is to become of me; what am I to do with my life? It lies before me, apparently as bleak, barren and monotonous as these miles of moorland--stretching on and on in dull undulations, or dead flats, till a range of low hills ends all! Yet, sometimes, this wild region has looked quite different. I remember describing it once--how beautiful it was, how breezy and open, with the ever-changing tints of the moor, the ever-shifting and yet always steadfast arch of the sky. Today I found it all colourless, blank, and cold; its monotony almost frightened me. I could do nothing but crouch on my heather-bush and cry. Tears do one good occasionally. When I dried mine, the hot weight on the top of my head seemed lighter. If there had been anybody to lay a cool hand there, and say, "Poor child, never mind!" it might have gone away. But there was no one: Lisa was the only one who ever "petted" me. I thought, I would go home and write a long letter to Lisa. Just as I was rising from my heather-bush, my favourite haunt, being as round as a mushroom, as soft as a velvet cushion, and hidden by two great furze-bushes, from the road--I heard footsteps approaching. Having no mind to be discovered in that gipsy plight, I crouched down again. People's footsteps are so different, it is often easy to recognize them. This, I think, I should have known anywhere--quick, regular, determined; rather hasty, as if no time could be lost; as if, according to the proverb, it would never "let the grass grow under it." Crouching lower, I listened; I heard him stop and speak to an old woman, who had been coming up the road towards the village. No words were distinguishable, but the voice--I could not have mistaken it--it is not like our English voices. What a strange feeling it is, listening to people's steps or voices, when they do not know you are near them. Something like being a ghost, and able to watch them--perhaps watch over them--without its being unnatural or wrong. He stood talking--I should say, Doctor Urquhart stood talking--for several minutes. The other voice, by its querulousness, I guessed to be poor Mrs. Cartwright's; but it softened by degrees, and then I heard distinctly her earnest "thank'ee, Doctor--God bless'ee, sir," as he walked away, and vanished over the slope of the hill. She looked after him a minute, and then, turning, toddled on her way.