Roderick's letter to her had therefore fallen on her unprepared mind as a revelation. All the two previous days her thoughts had been repeating over and over his earnest words. How deeply he must have felt before he could so have expressed his anxiety! And she? What answer should she make? All the long years of their intercourse passed through her memory, and incidents disregarded at the time and forgotten, came back now to her recollection with a new meaning and a new force. Their long talks, in which he had spoken so much and she so little, began now to take a new aspect in her mind. She must have been encouraging him though she did not know it; and what was more, if she had to enact those scenes over again, with the new enlightenment in her eyes, she felt that she would encourage him none the less, but rather the more. To have excited such emotion in one so clever and good, was an achievement of which she felt proud, in a wondering and enquiring way, for she could not imagine how she had done it; but the thought of his love for her grew more and more sweet and engrossing, and she began to suspect that down deep somewhere in her nature where she had never looked or known of before, she was fond of him in return. And yet, she had not answered the letter. What would he think of her? Since her mother had called her unmaidenly, she had not ventured to return to the subject in case of another explosion. But now that she had in cold blood set a matrimonial scheme before her, and deliberately incited her to endeavour to win the regard of a man for whom she felt no attraction whatever, simply because he was rich, she felt strong enough to broach the question again. Whatever her mother said she would answer his letter somehow, and more than that, should her mother propose another suitor, she would have nothing to say to him till she had come to an understanding with Roderick. Having donned the blue silk, Sophia descended to the drawing-room, work-basket in hand. The room was empty, which was disappointing, as she had strung herself up to concert pitch She settled herself to work and waited. The monotonous motion of the needle and thread had a calming influence on her nerves; but as they grew less tense she began to feel less confidence in her own courage, and to wish her meditated conversation well over. Visitors came in, which afforded her a further respite, and in her disturbed state supplied a vent for some of her suppressed energy. She had never before, perhaps, shown so much animation and vivacity in general conversation. It surprised her mother and quite rehabilitated her in the good opinion of that careful parent, who congratulated her on having so well held her part, and hoped it was the beginning of a new chapter in her life, and that she was about to assume with due _éclat_ the part of daughter in so prominent a household of the Free Church.