And while Lilias began to move about the house in the new strength, which, she fancied, arose from a resolve to exert herself and show her gratitude to her friends, Helen went quickly down the Waterside to her daily labour. Her quick, nervous, tell-tale motions seemed to have been subdued in presence of the mourner, and her face looked paler and quieter than was its wont. That varying temperament of hers had a strange facility of catching the tone of the atmosphere in which she was, and wearing it unconsciously as the sky wears the clouds. The happy good-morrow twitterings--not songs--of the birds among the dewy glistening leaves confused the stronger voice of the wan water, and filled all the fresh morning air with inarticulate music--cheerful sounds came through the intervening trees from Fendie. Children, yonder, on the high-road began to flock out of the cottage doors to school. Scarcely any heart could refuse to rise with the buoyant upspringing new day; but along the green, soft path, and through this plain of long waving grass by the side of the bridge, Helen Buchanan went quietly with a dimness on her face. She had cares and bitternesses enough, as she said. William Oswald was still in Edinburgh; he had not been home even for a day; but the Reverend Robert had learned with inexpressible surprise and considerable pain that the young schoolmistress of Fendie did not choose to accept the dignified position to which he had elected her. It was almost the first rebuff he had met with since the triumphant beginning of his career, and he was a mortal young man, though he was a minister, and felt the mortification of being rejected to its fullest extent. So the Reverend Robert concealed the disappointment of the true honest feelings which did him honour under a veil of pique and pride. He could not manage to be indifferent, yet in his manner, when he accidentally met her, and in his attempt at indifference, was almost rude to Helen. Her sensitive pride began to rise again in full tide; people had begun to notice her for the sake of the minister, who now believing, as thoughtless malice said, that the minister had changed his mind and withdrawn in time, withdrew too, and marked the change: and Mrs Buchanan’s little quiet house fell into its old loneliness once more. And the old weariness came sometimes back, and forlorn bitter thoughts swelled sometimes again about the changing heart. It was the penalty she paid for her power to endure and to enjoy.