"I shall see you again soon, Amy dear," said Anne, with tearful eyes, as together they stood on the terrace. "Tom has promised to drive me over some day next week, not entirely for his dear wife's sake though; but because he has taken a great interest in some dreadful sinner in this parish, and she as violent a liking to him. The old rector has given Tom permission to visit her whenever he likes, glad enough, I dare say, to be rid the trouble of it himself. Poor woman! she cannot live long--a breaking up of nature, or something of that sort; but Mrs. Archer knows more about it than I do." "Anne! Anne! What are you talking about?" asked her husband, catching a word here and there, of her rambling speech. "Come! jump in, the pony is quite impatient to be off." "And so is his master," laughed Anne; "we shall drive off in grand style, and then dilly-dally for half-an-hour, or more, at the turnpike, while he chats to his heart's content with Jane; that's the name of his new friend, dear. There, I really must say good-bye, or perhaps Tom may go without me." And almost smothering Amy with kisses she sprang down the steps and in another moment was seated by her husband, and they drove off. A few hours after, Mrs. Elrington arrived at the Hall; but as she had truly said, long ago, it was pain and grief to her to look on Mrs. Linchmore's face again; and she leant heavily on Mr. Linchmore's arm, as she passed from the carriage. She paused a moment, as he would have led her into the drawing-room to his wife; and pointing through the half-open door, said simply, "We meet as strangers." And so they did--the once adopted daughter and fondly-loved mother; but it cost them _both_ an effort; for while Mrs. Elrington's hand trembled and shook like an aspen on the top of the stick with which she steadied her footsteps, Mr. Linchmore thought he had never seen his wife look more proudly beautiful and magnificent. Anne's letter represented Amy as heart-broken, not only with the loss of her child, but sorrow stricken with the anxiety caused by the fresh trial of her husband's illness. Anne said not a word of the _living_ grief consuming her heart, but Mrs. Elrington had not been many days at Brampton ere she suspected it; that pale, sweet anxious face, so thin and care-worn, told its own tale, with the faltering, uncertain step; the mournful yet loving way with which she tended her husband now rapidly approaching convalescence. How she anticipated his every wish. Yet there was a hesitation, an uncertainty about it, all too evident to a watchful eye; it seemed as though with her anxiety to please, there was an evident fear of displeasing. Surely the wife needed the most care and tenderness now: the first she had, but the latter, where was that? Where the nameless attentions and thousand loving words her husband might speak?