“But, my dear, how can we tell?” said Mrs Atheling; “he may be ill, or he may be out of town, or he may have trouble in his family. It is very difficult to judge another person--and you don’t know what may have happened; he may be coming here himself, for aught we know.” “Well, I think it is very hard,” said Marian; “I wish we only could publish it ourselves. What is the good of a publisher? They are only cruel to everybody, and grow rich themselves; it is always so in books.” “He might surely have written at least,” repeated Agnes. These young malcontents were extremely dissatisfied, and not at all content with Mrs Atheling’s explanation that he might be ill, or out of town, or have trouble in his family. Whatever extenuating circumstances there might be, it was clear that Mr Burlington had not behaved properly, or with the regard for other people’s feelings which Agnes concluded to be the only true mark of a gentleman. Even the conversation of last night, and the state and greatness of Mr Endicott, stimulated the impatience of the girls. “It is not for the book so much, as for the uncertainty,” Agnes said, as she disconsolately took out her sewing; but in fact it was just because they had so much certainty, and so little change and commotion in their life, that they longed so much for the excitement and novelty of this new event. They were very dull this afternoon, and everything out of doors sympathised with their dulness. It was a wet day--a hopeless, heavy, persevering, not-to-be-mended day of rain. The clouds hung low and leaden over the wet world; the air was clogged and dull with moisture, only lightened now and then by an impatient shrewish gust, which threw the small raindrops like so many prickles full into your face. The long branches of the lilacs blew about wildly with a sudden commotion, when one of these gusts came upon them, like a group of heroines throwing up their arms in a tragic appeal to heaven. The primroses, pale and drooping, sullied their cheeks with the wet soil; hour after hour, with the most sullen and dismal obstinacy, the rain rained down upon the cowering earth; not a sound was in Bellevue save the trickle of the water, a perfect stream, running strong and full down the little channel on either side the street. It was in vain to go to the window, where not a single passenger--not a baker’s boy, nor a maid on pattens, nobody but the milkman in his waterproof-coat--hurrying along, a peripatetic fountain, with little jets of water pouring from his hat, his cape, and his pails--was visible through the whole dreary afternoon. It is possible to endure a wet morning--easy enough to put up with a wet night; but they must have indeed high spirits and pleasurable occupations who manage to keep their patience and their cheerfulness through the sullen and dogged monotony of a wet afternoon.