She stood quietly waiting while he made his farewells. Agnes, whose eye fell on her sister during the pause, was struck with a passing sense of something out of the common. She could hardly have defined her impression, but Catherine seemed more alive to the outer world, more like other people, less nun-like, than usual. When they had left the garden together, as they had come into it, and Mrs. Leyburn, complaining of chilliness, had retreated to the drawing-room, Rose laid a quick hand on her sister's arm. 'You say Catherine likes him? Owl! what is a great deal more certain is that he likes her.' 'Well,' said Agnes calmly,--'well, I await your remarks.' 'Poor fellow! said Rose grimly, and removed her hand. Meanwhile Elsmere and Catherine walked along the valley road towards the Vicarage. He thought, uneasily, she was a little more reserved with him than she had been in those pleasant moments after he had overtaken her in the pony-carriage; but still she was always kind, always courteous. And what a white hand it was, hanging ungloved against her dress! what a beautiful dignity and freedom, as of mountain winds and mountain streams, in every movement! 'You are bound for High Ghyll?' he said to her as they neared the vicarage gate. Is it not a long way for you? You have been at a meeting already, your sister said, and teaching this morning!' He looked down on her with a charming diffidence as though aware that their acquaintance was very young, and yet with a warm eagerness of feeling piercing through. As she paused under his eye the slightest flush rose to Catherine's cheek. Then she looked up with a smile. It was amusing to be taken care of by this tall stranger! 'It is most unfeminine, I am afraid,' she said, 'but I couldn't be tired if I tried.' Elsmere grasped her hand. 'You make me feel myself more than ever a shocking example,' he said, letting it go with a little sigh. The smart of his own renunciation was still keen in him. She lingered a moment, could find nothing to say, threw him a look all shy sympathy and lovely pity, and was gone. In the evening Robert got an explanation of that sudden stiffening in his auditor of the afternoon, which had perplexed him. He and the vicar were sitting smoking in the study after dinner, and the ingenious young man managed to shift the conversation on to the Leyburns, as he had managed to shift it once or twice before that day, flattering himself, of course, on each occasion that his manoeuvres were beyond detection. The vicar, good soul, by virtue of his original discovery, detected them all, and with a sense of appropriation in the matter, not at all unmixed with a sense of triumph over Mrs. T., kept the ball rolling merrily. 'Miss Leyburn seems to have very strong religious views,' said Robert, _a propos_ of some remark of the vicar's as to the assistance she was to him in the school.