Yes: that was all. I think she _was_ grateful. But she had not been candid with me, nor with the poor surgeon. I had no anger: far from it: a great deal of regard and goodwill, nay admiration, for the intrepid girl who had played a long, hard part very cheerfully and bravely. But my foolish little flicker of love had blazed up and gone out in a day; I knew that she never could care for me. In that dismal, wakeful night, after reading the letter, I had thought her character and story over, and seen to what a life of artifice and dissimulation necessity had compelled her. I did not blame her. In such circumstances, with such a family, how could she be frank and open? Poor thing! poor thing! Do we know anybody? Ah! dear me, we are most of us very lonely in the world. You who have any who love you, cling to them, and thank God. I went into the hall towards evening: her poor trunks and packages were there, and the little nurserymaid weeping over them. The sight unmanned me; and I believe I cried myself. Poor Elizabeth! And with these small chests you recommence your life’s lonely voyage! I gave the girl a couple of sovereigns. She sobbed a God bless me! and burst out crying more desperately than ever. Thou hast a kind heart, little Pinhorn! * * * * * “‘Miss Prior—to be called for.’ Whose trunks are these?” says Lovel, coming from the city. The dowagers drove up at the same moment. “Didn’t you see us from the omnibus, Frederick?” cries her ladyship, coaxingly. “We followed behind you all the way!” “We were in the barouche, my dear,” remarks Mrs. Bonnington, rather nervously. “Whose trunks are these?—what’s the matter?—and what’s the girl crying for?” asks Lovel. “Miss Prior is a-going away,” sobs Pinhorn. “Miss Prior going? Is this your doing, my Lady Baker?—or yours, mother?” the master of the house says, sternly. “She is going, my love, because she cannot stay in this family,” says mamma. “That woman is no fit companion for my angel’s children, Frederick!” cries Lady B. “That person has deceived us all, my love!” says mamma. “Deceived?—how? Deceived whom?” continues Mr. Lovel, more and more hotly. “Clarence, love! come down, dear! Tell Mr. Lovel everything. Come down and tell him this moment,” cries Lady Baker to her son, who at this moment appears on the corridor which was round the hall. “What’s the row now, pray?” And Captain Clarence descends, breaking his shins over poor Elizabeth’s trunks, and calling down on them his usual maledictions. “Tell Mr. Lovel, where you saw that—that person, Clarence! Now, sir, listen to my Cecilia’s brother!” “Saw her—saw her, in blue and spangles, in the _Rose and the Bulbul_, at the Prince’s Theatre—and a doosed nice-looking girl she was too!”—says the captain. “There, sir!” “There, Frederick!” cry the matrons in a breath. “And what then?” asks Lovel.