For Sylvia the idea of Miss Lee's departure and marriage was desolating; it was an abrupt rending of half the ties that bound her to Hornton House. Phyllis, Miss Ashley, and the twins were all that really remained, and Phyllis was always threatening to persuade her people to take her away when the weather was tolerably warm, so deeply did she resent the loss of hunting. It was curious how much more Phyllis meant to her than Philip, so much, indeed, that she had never confided in her that she was going to marry Philip. How absurd that two names so nearly alike could be in the one case so beautiful, in the other so ugly. Yet she was still very fond of Philip and she still enjoyed going out with him on Sundays, even though it meant being deprived of pleasant times with Phyllis. She had warned Philip that she might get too fond of school, and he had smiled in that superior way of his. Ought she to marry him at all? He had been so kind to her that if she refused to marry him she would have to run away, for she could not continue under an obligation. Why did people want to marry? Why must she marry? Worst of all, why must Miss Lee marry? But these were questions that not even Miss Hossack would be able to answer. Ah, if it had only been Miss Hossack who had been going to marry. Sylvia began to make up a rhyme about Miss Hossack marrying a Cossack and going for her honeymoon to the Trossachs, where Helen Macdonald lived. All the girls had subscribed to buy Miss Lee a dressing-case, which they presented to her one evening after tea with a kind of dismal beneficence, as if they were laying a wreath upon her tomb. Next morning she went away by an early train to the north of England, and after lunch every girl retired with the secret sorrow that now had more than fashion to commend it. Sylvia's sorrow was an aching regret that she had not told Miss Lee more about herself and her life and Philip; now it was too late. She met the twins wandering disconsolately enlaced along the corridor outside her room. "Oh, Sylvia, dearest Sylvia!" they moaned. "We've lost our duet with Miss Lee's fingering." "I'll help you to look for it." "Oh, but we lost it on purpose, because we didn't like it, and the next day Miss Lee said she was going to be married." Sylvia asked where they lost it. "Oh, we put it in an envelope and posted it to the Bishop of London." Sylvia suggested they should write to the Bishop and explain the circumstances in which the duet was sent to him; he would no doubt return it. "Oh no," said the twins, mournfully. "We never put a stamp on and we wrote inside, 'A token of esteem and regard from two sinners who you confirmed.' How can we ask for it back?" Sylvia embraced the twins, and the three of them wandered in the sad and wintry garden until it was time for afternoon school.