"Well,"--saith my Aunt, and broke off all at once. "Eh, girls, girls! Poor unfledged birds, fluttering your wings on the brim of the nest, and pooh-poohing the old bird behind you, that says, `Take care, my dears, or you will fall!' She never flew out of the nest, did she?--she never preened her wings, and thought all the world lay before her, and she could fly as straight as any lark of them all, and catch as many flies as any swallow? Ay, nor she never tumbled off into the mire, and found she could not fly a bit, and all the insects went darting past her as safe as if she were a dead leaf? Eh, my lassies, this would be a poor world, if it were all. I have seen something of it, though you thought not, likely enough. But flowers are flowers, and dirt is dirt, whether you find them on the banks of the Thames or of Ellen Water. And I have not dwelt all my life at Brocklebank: though if I had, I should have seen men and women, and they are much alike all the world over." I could not keep it in, and out it came. "Please, Aunt Kezia, don't be angry, but what is become of Cecilia Osborne?" "I dare say you will know, Cary, before I do. She went to London, I believe." "Oh, I don't want to see her, Aunt Kezia." "Then you are pretty sure to do it." "But why did she not--" I was afraid to go on. "Why did she not keep her word? You can ask her if you want to know. Don't say I wanted to know, that's all. I don't." "But how was it, Aunt Kezia?" said I, for I was on fire with curiosity. Flora made an attempt to check me. "You are both welcome to know all I know," said my Aunt: "and that is, that she spent one evening at the Fells with us, and the Hebblethwaites and Mr Parmenter were there: the next day we saw nothing of her, and on the evening of the third there came a little note to me--a dainty little pink three-cornered note, all over perfume--in which Miss Cecilia Osborne presented her compliments to Mrs Kezia Courtenay, and begged to say that she found herself obliged to go to London, and would have set out before the note should reach me. That is as much as I know, and more than I want to know." "And she did not say when she was coming back?" "Not in any hurry, I fancy," said my Aunt Kezia, grimly. "Going to stop away altogether?" "She's welcome," answered my Aunt, in the same tone. "Then who will live at Fir Vale?" asked Flora. "Don't know. The first of you may that gets married. Don't go and do it on purpose." Annas seemed much diverted. I wanted very much to know how Father had taken Cecilia's flight, but I did not feel I could ask that. "Any more questions, young ladies?" saith my Aunt Kezia, quizzically. "We will get them done first, if you please." "I beg your pardon, Aunt," said I. "Only I did want to know so much."