Then we talked of the past year, how it had brought Mrs. Esther a daughter--as she was good enough to say--and taken away a sister. She cried a little over her loss, but presently recovered, and taking my hand in hers, said many kind and undeserved things to me, who had been often petulant and troublesome: as that we must not part, who had been so strangely brought together, unless my happiness should take me away from the Fleet (I thought, then, of my husband, and wondered if he would ever come to take me away), and then said that as we were at New Year's Eve, we should make good resolutions for the next year, which were to be kept resolutely, not broken and thrown away; that for her part, she designed, if I agreed and consented to the change, to call me niece, and I should call her aunt, by which mutual adoption of each other our affection and duty one towards the other would be strengthened and founded, as it were, on a sure and stable basis. "Not, my dear," she added, "that you can ever call yourself a Pimpernel--an honour granted to few--or that you should ever wish to change your name; but in all other respects you shall be the same as if you were indeed my own niece, the daughter of my brother (but I never had one) or sister (but I had only one, and she was as myself). Truly the Pleydells are a worthy family, of whom we have no need to be ashamed." I was assuring her that nothing could alter my love and gratitude for her exceeding kindness, when we heard footsteps and voices on the stairs, and presently a knock at the door, and the Doctor stood before us. Behind him were Sir Miles Lackington and Solomon Stallabras. "Madam," said the Doctor, "I wish you a good evening, with the compliments of the season. Merry as well as happy may you be next year." I declare that directly I saw his face, my heart leaped into my mouth. I _knew_ that he was come with great and glorious news. For his eyes glowed with the light of some suppressed knowledge, and a capacious smile began with his lips and glowed over the vast expanse of his ruddy cheeks. "Merry, Doctor--no. But happy if God will."