When things had arrived at this pitch, a sudden and extraordinary change occurred all at once in Mr. Beresford’s plans. For a day no communications whatever took place between No. 7 and No. 8 in the Square. Oswald did not come in the morning--which was a thing that might be accounted for; but Edward did not appear in the evening--which was more extraordinary. Miss Cherry had brought out her art-needlework, notwithstanding the forlorn air of semi-dismantling which the drawing-room had already assumed, and Cara had her hemming ready. ‘It will only be for a night or two more,’ said Miss Cherry, ‘and we may just as well be comfortable; but she sighed; and as for Cara, the expression of her young countenance had changed altogether to one of nervous and impatient trouble. She was pale, her eyes had a fitful glimmer. Her aunt’s little ways fretted her as they had never done before. Now and then a sense of the intolerable seized upon the girl. She would not put up with the little daily contradictions to which everybody is liable. She would burst out into words of impatience altogether foreign to her usual character. She was fretted beyond her powers of endurance. But at this moment she calmed down again. She acquiesced in Miss Cherry’s little speech and herself drew the chairs into their usual places, and got the book which Edward had been reading to them. The ladies were very quiet, expecting their visitor; the fire sent forth little puffs of flame and crackles of sound, the clock ticked softly, everything else was silent. Cara fell into a muse of many fancies, more tranquil than usual, for the idea that he would not come had not entered her mind. At least they would be happy to-night. This thought lulled her into a kind of feverish tranquillity, and even kept her from rousing, as Miss Cherry did, to the sense that he had not come at his usual hour and might not be coming. ‘Edward is very late,’ Miss Cherry said at last. ‘Was there any arrangement made, Cara, that he was not to come?’ ‘Arrangement? that he was not to come!’ ‘My dear,’ said good Miss Cherry, who had been very dull for the last hour, ‘you have grown so strange in your ways. I don’t want to blame you, Cara; but how am I to know? Oswald comes in the morning and Edward in the evening; but how am I to know? If one has said more to you than the other, if you think more of one than the other, you never tell _me_. Cara, is it quite right, dear? I thought you would have told me that day that Oswald came and wanted to see you alone; of course, we know what that meant; but you evaded all my questions; you never would tell me.’ ‘Aunt Cherry, it was because there was nothing to tell. I told you there would be nothing.’