That the idea of Tom's friendship was very pleasant to her, who can blame her? He had never said he loved her; he had only said she was lovely: was she therefore bound to persuade herself he meant nothing at all? Was it not as much as could be required of her, that, in her modesty, she took him for no more than a true, kind friend, who would gladly be of service to her? Ah! if Tom had but been that! If he was not, he did not know it, which is something to say both for and against him. It could not be other than pleasant to Letty to have one, in her eyes so superior, who would talk to her as an equal. It was not that ever she resented being taught; but she did get tired of lessons only, beautiful as they were. A kiss from Mrs. Wardour, or a little teasing from Cousin Godfrey, would have done far more than all his intellectual labor upon her to lift her feet above such snares as she was now walking amid. She needed some play--a thing far more important to life than a great deal of what is called business and acquirement. Many a matter, over which grown people look important, long-faced, and consequential, is folly, compared with the merest child's frolic, in relation to the true affairs of existence. All the time, Letty had not in the least neglected her houseduties; and, again, her readings with her cousin Godfrey, since Tom's apparent recession, had begun to revive in interest. He grew kinder and kinder to her, more and more fatherly. But the mother, once disquieted, had lost no time in taking measures. In every direction, secretly, through friends, she was inquiring after some situation suitable for Letty: she owed it to herself, she said, to find for the girl the right thing, before sending her from the house. In the true spirit of benevolent tyranny, she said not a word to Letty of her design. She had the chronic distemper of concealment, where Letty had but a feverish attack. Much false surmise might have been corrected, and much evil avoided, had she put it in Letty's power to show how gladly she would leave Thornwick. In the mean time the old lady kept her lynx-eye upon the young people. But Godfrey, having caught a certain expression in the said eye, came to the resolution that thenceforth their schoolroom should be the common sitting-room. This would aid him in carrying out his resolve of a cautious and staid demeanor toward his pupil. To preserve his freedom, he must keep himself thoroughly in hand. Experience had taught him that, were he once to give way and show his affection, there would from that moment be an end of teaching and learning. And yet so much was he drawn to the girl, that, at this very time, he gave her the manuscript of his own verses to which I have referred--a volume exquisitely written, and containing, certainly, the outcome of the best that was in him: he did not tell her that he had copied them all with such care and neatness, and had the book so lovelily bound, expressly and only for her eyes..