Bella and Beatrix were good friends still, but not such friends as they had been a year or even six months ago. There was a restraint on both sides. Beatrix could not have told why it was, but it seemed to her that there was a change in herself, and a still greater change in Bella. Bella knew very well what it was that made her uncomfortable in Miss Harefield’s society. It was the sealed letter in its hiding-place in Bella’s shabby old bedroom. That sealed letter weighed like a load of iron upon Bella’s conscience when she found herself in Beatrix’s company; and yet she was glad that she had done this thing, if it had been the means of parting Cyril and Beatrix. She would like to have seen them parted even more irrevocably, so that under no circumstances could time or chance bring them together again. She was in this temper of mind when she went to spend the evening at the Vicarage, after her little talk with Mr. Piper in the stone portico at the Park. It was about a week since Sir Kenrick had made his offer and had been rejected. He had taken a wonderful fancy to fishing for pike after that catastrophe, and had brought home some very handsome specimens of that ravenous tribe, for the Vicarage cook to stuff and bake, and serve with savoury sauces for the three o’clock dinner. ‘I think I shall have to protest, like the highland gillies when they got too much salmon, if Kenrick goes on bringing home pike in this way,’ said Mr. Dulcimer, when the cover was lifted and the hungry-jawed scaly monster appeared before him. Kenrick was off in the early gray to his fishing grounds, so he and Beatrix only met of an evening. He was very polite to her, and evidently bore no malice. Hope was not altogether extinguished in his breast. He had much confidence in Mrs. Dulcimer, who had said that something must be done. Kenrick had not the faintest idea what this inveterate match-maker meant to do, but he felt that her friendship would stick at nothing which a clergyman’s wife might do without peril to her soul. ‘Bella,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer after tea, ‘I want to show you the things I’ve made for the missionary basket. You might be able to help me a little, perhaps.’ ‘I shall be delighted, dear Mrs. Dulcimer,’ answered Bella, inwardly lamenting that it had pleased God to call her to that station of life in which her friends always felt themselves justified in asking her to work for them. A young woman of fortune like Miss Harefield might be as idle or as selfish as she pleased. Nobody ever thought of asking for payment in kind for any favour they showed her; but everybody who did any kindness to penniless Bella Scratchell wanted to extort recompense for his or her civility in needlework or some sort of drudgery.