Miss Valery here came to the rescue, and turned the conversation into a merry channel Agatha was surprised to find what a wondrous power of unfeigned home-cheerfulness there was in this woman, who had lived to be called even by those that loved her, “an old maid.” And when at last the Squire gracefully allowed the departure of his women-kind, who floated away like a flock of released birds, they all clustered around Anne, as though she were in the constant habit of knowing everybody's business, and of thinking and judging for everybody. Agatha sat a little way off, watching her, and wondering what could be the strange influence which always made her take delight in watching Anne Valery. There is something very peculiar in this admiration which one woman occasionally conceives for another, generally much older than herself. It is not exactly friendship, but partakes more of the character of love--in its idealisation, its shyness, its enthusiastic reverence, its hopeless doubt of requital, and, above all, its jealousies. For this reason, it generally comes previous to, or for want of, the real love, the drawing of the feminine soul towards its masculine half, which makes--according to the Platonic doctrine--a perfect being. Of course, this theory would be almost universally considered “sentimentalism”--Agatha's little infatuation being included therein; but the frequency of such infatuations existing in the world around us argues some truth at their origin. To the young girl--still so girlish, though she was married--there was an inexplicable attraction in all Anne Valery said or did. The very sweep of her dress across the floor--her slow soft motions, which might have been haughty when she was young, but now were only gracious and self-possessed; the way she had of folding her hands on one another, and looking straight forward with a kind observant smile, free alike from sentiment, crossness, or melancholy; her tone and manner, neither showy nor sharp; her habit of saying the wisest things in the most simple way, so that nobody recognised them as wisdom till afterwards--all filled Agatha with a sense of satisfied admiration. She wished either that she had been a man, to have adored and married Anne years ago--or that her own marriage had been delayed for a little, until she had grown wiser and more fit for life's destiny by learning from and loving such a woman as Miss Valery.