Ellinor, we have said, had thanked heaven for her escape from what must have proved a great and perilous _esclandre_; yet by one of those idiosyncracies of the female heart she also thanked heaven that London was to be the place of their exile; Sir Redmond was there, no doubt, and she felt assured that he loved her still. Mighty though the modern Babylon was--and of that mightiness she had not the slightest conception--they might meet again; and even, if not, it would be pleasant to walk in the same streets where he walked or rode; to breathe the same air that was breathed by him: to be in the same place where _he_ was. So she had, to enliven the path before her, a little element of romance that was unknown to, and denied to the poor but more practical Mary; and to her, foolish girl, it seemed that perhaps the dear old tale might conclude, after all, with wedding bells and vows of wedded love. Why she should have indulged in these dreams it is difficult to say. Days upon days had passed, and, like Colville, the impassioned baronet, with whom she had been on the point of sharing her future, gave no sign, and she could make none. But she was yet to learn that; all the fine old Grandisonian notions of honour and delicacy towards woman held by our grandfathers were exploded, or else deemed absolutely antediluvian and absurd.' Now she longed to be gone--gone even from Birkwoodbrae. 'She wanted to see life' (she thought), 'as poets and painters and young ladies picture it--a sort of misty, delicious paradisiacal existence of excitement, unfailing amusement, and perpetual delight.' The old peace of mind was gone; she wished to leave all connected with it behind; and, poor girl, she little knew what was before her--it might be of penury, struggle, and despair! Every movement, as the hour of departure approached, brought a fresh pang to the tender heart of Mary. She had parted with her pets and household cares. Her tame owl she had cast loose, and she watched him as he winged his way back to his eyrie in the ruined tower, from which Robert Wodrow in happier times had brought him. Wearily and sadly she had all the dear familiar spots, and the cottars who dwelt among them, to visit for the last time--hard and shrivelled hands to press and children to kiss. How should she ever get through it all? She picked up a few daisies from the graves where her parents lay, and placed them between the leaves of her Bible, and then it seemed as if there was nothing more to do. The evening seemed painfully sweet and silent and still when the sisters quitted their home for the last time, and to Mary it seemed that even 'the grasshoppers were silent in the grass.'