Once again Clarissa finds herself in Brussels, with her chosen friend beside her. She clasps Georgie in a warm embrace; and then Cissy Redmond, who is a thoroughly good sort, goes out of the room, leaving the new governess alone with her old companion. "At last I see you," says Miss Broughton, moving back a little, and leaning her hands on Clarissa's shoulders that she may the more easily gaze at her. "I thought you would never come. All the morning I have been waiting, and watching, and longing for you!" Her voice is peculiar,--half childish, half petulant, and wholly sweet. She is not crying, but great tears are standing in her eyes as though eager to fall, and her lips are trembling. "I didn't like to come earlier," says Clarissa, kissing her again. "It is only twelve now, you know; but I was longing every bit as much to see you as you could be to see me. Oh, Georgie, how glad I am to have you near me! and----you have not changed a little scrap." She says this in a relieved tone. "Neither have you," says Georgie: "you are just the same. There is a great comfort in that thought. If I had found you changed,--different in any way,--what should I have done? I felt, when I saw you standing tall and slight in the doorway, as if time had rolled back, and we were together again at Madame Brochet's. Oh, how happy I was then! And now----now----" The big tears in her pathetic eyes tremble to their fall, she covers her face with her hands. "Tell me everything," says Clarissa, tenderly. "What is there to tell?--except that I am alone in the world, and very desolate. It is more than a year ago now since----since----papa left me. It seems like a long century. At first I was apathetic; it was despair I felt, I suppose; indeed, I was hardly conscious of the life I was leading when with my aunt. Afterwards the reaction set in; then came the sudden desire for change, the intense longing for work of any kind; and then----" "Then you thought of me!" says Clarissa, pressing her hand. "That is true. Then I thought of you, and how ready your sympathy had ever been. When--when he died, he left me a hundred pounds. It was all he had to leave." She says this hastily, passionately, as though it must be gone through, no matter how severe the pain that accompanies the telling of it. Clarissa, understanding, draws even closer to her. This gentle movement is enough. A heart, too full, breaks beneath affection's touch. Georgie bursts into tears. "It was all on earth he _had_ to give," she sobs, bitterly, "and I think he must have _starved_ himself to leave me even that! Oh, shall I ever forget?" "In time," whispers Clarissa, gently. "Be patient: wait." Then, with a sigh, "How sad for some this sweet world can be!"