"Oh! I shouldn't. I would rather feel that I was a young princess, and that he was a warrior, worn-out and wounded in the battle of life; but that my love would comfort and cheer him after all the tiresome wars that he'd gone through. And as for whether he'd lost or won in the wars, I shouldn't care a rap, as long as I was sure that he couldn't be happy without me." "You and I never think alike about things," said Felicia sadly. "You old darling! What does it matter, as long as we agree in being fond of each other?" At eighteen Elisabeth said farewell to Fox How with many tears, and came back to live at the Willows with Miss Farringdon. While she had been at school, Christopher had been first in Germany and then in America, learning how to make iron, so that they had never met during Elisabeth's holidays; therefore, when he beheld her transformed from a little girl into a full-blown young lady, he straightway fell in love with her. He was, however, sensible enough not to mention the circumstance, even to Elisabeth herself, as he realized, as well as anybody, that the nephew of Richard Smallwood would not be considered a fitting mate for a daughter of the house of Farringdon; but the fact that he did not mention the circumstance in no way prevented him from dwelling upon it in his own mind, and deriving much pleasurable pain and much painful pleasure therefrom. In short, he dwelt upon it so exclusively and so persistently that it went near to breaking his heart; but that was not until his heart was older, and therefore more capable of being broken past mending again. Miss Farringdon and the people of Sedgehill were alike delighted to have Elisabeth among them once more; she was a girl with a strong personality; and people with strong personalities have a knack of making themselves missed when they go away. "It's nice, and so it is, to have Miss Elisabeth back again," remarked Mrs. Bateson to Mrs. Hankey; "and it makes it so much cheerfuller for Miss Farringdon, too." "Maybe it'll only make it the harder for Miss Farringdon when the time comes for Miss Elisabeth to be removed by death or by marriage; and which'll be the best for her--poor young lady!--the Lord must decide, for I'm sure I couldn't pass an opinion, only having tried one, and that nothing to boast of." "I wonder if Miss Farringdon will leave her her fortune," said Mrs. Bateson, who, in common with the rest of her class, was consumed with an absorbing curiosity as to all testamentary dispositions. "She may, and she may not; there's no prophesying about wills. I'm pleased to say I can generally foretell when folks is going to die, having done a good bit of sick-nursing in my time afore I married Hankey; but as to foretelling how they're going to leave their money, I can no more do it than the babe unborn; nor nobody can, as ever I heard tell on."