And thus it was with her on the morning of that day which Arthur spent playing croquet and telling stories to Alice Pimpernel. She had got safely over the post and her letters. There was not one from old Miss Arden at Escott, proposing a visit, such as, from day to day, she trembled to receive; neither did Clare’s old governess, Mrs. Seldon, throw herself upon her pupil’s hospitality; and though Edgar begged her again to reconsider her decision, and join him for at least a week or two “to see the pictures,” there was no violence of urgency in his letter. She was safe for another day, and the sunny hours were drawing on, bringing the afternoon and its visitor. “I shall finish that first drawer to-day,” Clare said to herself, with a half-conscious exaggeration of the importance of her work. She went into the library more than once to see that all was ready--that the shutters were closed to keep out the noonday sun, and the waste-paper basket cleared of all the fragments that had been thrown into it. “It is odd how pleasant such an occupation can grow,” she said to herself; “I don’t so much wonder at the passion for old papers that some people have.” She liked to keep this thought well before her mind. Her new study was so curious and full of interest. Such a lesson, too, in life, the smallest details of which were so absorbing as long as it lasted, so sadly, amusingly insignificant now. “Some day or other some one will read my letters like that,” she would add, with an incredulous smile. It was impossible, and yet no doubt it would come to pass; but would any one ever know how full and strong the blood was running in her veins--how vigorous life was, and warm and intense? Never before in her life had she so felt the power of the present--the moment that was hers, whatever might be taken from her. The clock was about to strike, and by this time no doubt he was coming up the avenue--her fellow-student--and the pleasantest work she had ever tried was about to begin.