So Amy followed and peeped, very shy and frightened, like a guilty thing, and she did see two horses, much more beautiful than she knew, one ridden by a common-looking groom, the other by a very smart, well set-up person, with a belt round his waist. That was all she saw, for they were gone in a flash, and she was too uncomfortable to see much, or to do more than hurriedly answer Florence's exclamation-- "Ain't he quite the gentleman? Bain't his horses real darlings?" before Jessie's voice was heard-- "Why, whatever are you two doing here?" The two girls both giggled, and each pushed the other to make her tell, and Florence laughed out-- "Oh, 'twas Amy wanted to see Mr. Wingfield pass by." "No, 'twasn't. 'Twas you," said Amy. "I don't see why you should get into a corner about it," said Jessie, rather gravely. "I've just met him straight upon the road, horses and all." "O yes, _you_!" said Florence. "Well, why not me?" "O, you know, you'll soon be an old maid like your sister." Jessie had not grown so wise as not to be nettled at this silly impertinent speech, but she was much more vexed to see that Florence was teaching Amy her own follies--Amy, who had always seemed like a pure little innocent wild rose-bud in its modest green leaves. So she answered, rather shortly-- "If you mean that I don't want to be right down ridiculous, I hope I am an old maid." This seemed to be very funny, for Florence went off in fits of laughing, and kept shouldering Amy to make her see the joke, but Amy had by this time grown ashamed and frightened and only answered, "Don't." So the three girls went in together, and no one took any special notice of Amy's hot face and uncomfortable gestures. It was the first time since she had been a very little child that she had shrunk from her aunts' eyes, or feared that they should ask her questions; and the sense that she had been undeserving of the trust they placed in her made her very ill at ease, though the silly girl did not do the only thing that would have set her right again, and made her safer for the future. Jessie meanwhile had forgotten the little vexation. She had something to brighten her up in Miss Needwood's little note. It was written on pink paper, edged with blue, as if nothing could be too good for Jessie; and it said no words could tell how glad she was, and what a comfort it was to have this real work to do. "It is really like a ray of hope in the darkness," said poor Bessie, in her little thin weak writing, with a very hard steel pen. But that note warmed up Jessie's heart, although her finger was getting severely ploughed up with the stitching she had been doing to save her mother's eyes. "There was not to be an inch of machine work," Mrs. Robson had said, and the Hollises were people who fulfilled all they undertook.