Jenny received a post card from Maurice in answer to her letter. She was glad he made no attempt to argue a point of view which his absence had already modified more persuasively than any pleading. During the summer, perhaps on one of those expeditions long talked of, she would make him her own with one word; having sacrificed much on account of her mother, she was not prepared to sacrifice all; and when Maurice came back, when she saw his blue eyes quick with love's fires, and knew again the sorcery of hands and breathless enfolding of arms, it would be easy upon his heart to swoon out of everything except compliance. Aglow with tenderness, she wrote a second letter hinting that no chain was wanting but the sight of him to bind her finally and completely. Yet, with whatever periphrasis she wrapped it round, the resolve was not to be expressed with a pen. Recorded so, it seemed to lose something vital to its beauty of purpose. However thoughtfully she wrote and obliterated and wrote again, at the end it always gave the impression of a bargain. She tore the letter up. No sentence she knew how to write would be heavy with the velvet glooms of summer nights, prophetic of that supreme moment now at hand when girlhood should go in a rapture. A week went by, and Jenny received another post card, postponing the date of his return to May 1. She was much disappointed, but took the envelope he had given her at Waterloo, and altered, half in fun, half seriously, April 23 to May 1. The night before she was to meet Maurice, there was a heavy fall of rain reminding her of the night they first drove home together. She lay awake listening to the pervading sound of the water and thinking how happy she was. There was no little sister to cuddle now; but with the thought of Maurice on his way home to her kisses, her imagination was full of company. It was a morning of gold and silver when she was first conscious of the spent night. The room was steeped in rich illuminations. Sparrows twittered very noisily, and their shadows would sometimes slip across the dingy walls and ceiling. "To-day," thought Jenny, as, turning over in a radiancy of dreams and blushes and murmurous awakenings, she fell asleep for two more slow hours of a lover's absence. The later morning was passed in unpicking and re-shaping the lucky green hat which had lain hidden since the autumn. There was no time, however, to perfect its restoration; and Jenny had to be content with a new saxe-blue dress in which she looked very trim and eager under a black mushroom hat a-blow with rosebuds.