Every alternate Sunday the young man's horse appeared at Mr. Raymond's gate. He would have come every Sunday, if he had dared, and indeed had been invited to do so by Isabel's kind employer; but he had sensitive scruples about eating so much beef and mutton, and drinking so many cups of tea, for which he could make no adequate return to his hospitable entertainer. Sometimes he brought a present for one of the orphans,--a work-box or a desk, fitted with scissors that wouldn't cut, and inkstands that wouldn't open (for there are no Parkins and Gotto in Graybridge or its vicinity), or a marvellous cake, made by Matilda Jeffson. Once he got up a little entertainment for his betrothed and her friends, and gave quite a dinner, with five sweets, and an elaborate dessert, and with the most plum-coloured of ports, and the brownest of sherries, procured specially from the Cock at Graybridge. But as the orphans, who alone did full justice to the entertainment, were afflicted with a bilious attack on the following day, the experiment was not repeated. But the dinner at Graybridge was not without its good effect. Isabel saw the house that was to be her home; and the future began to take a more palpable shape than it had worn hitherto. She looked at the little china ornaments on the mantel-piece, the jar of withered rose-leaves, mingled with faint odours of spices--the scent was very faint now, for the hands of George's dead mother had gathered the flowers. George took Isabel through the little rooms, and showed her an old-fashioned work-table, with a rosewood box at the top, and a well of fluted silk, that had once been rose-coloured, underneath. "My mother used to sit at this table working, while she waited for my father; I've often heard him say so. You'll use the old work-box, won't you, Izzie?" George asked, tenderly.