'Leave me! Oh, you want a holiday, I suppose?--that is natural enough. We needn't be tragic about that. You want to go over to Dieppe to see your people?' 'I want to go away from Kingthorpe for ever.' 'For ever? Ah, now we are really tragic!' said Miss Wendover, lightly, her broad, firm white hand tenderly smoothing the girl's hair and brow. 'My dear child, what has gone amiss with you? Something has, I can see. Have you and Miss Rylance quarrelled? I know she is a viper; but I did not think she would play any of her viperish tricks with my property.' 'Miss Rylance has done nothing. I have quarrelled with nobody. I love and honour you and the whole house of Wendover with all my heart and mind. But there is a reason--a reason which I implore you to refrain from asking--why I ought never to have come into your house, as I did come--why I ought to leave it--must leave it for ever!' 'This is very mysterious,' said Aunt Betsy, thinking deeply. 'I could understand a reason--which might exist in a girl's romantic mind--a mistaken generosity, or a mistaken pride--the outcome of late events--which might urge you to run away--like that always wrong-headed and misguided young person, the heroine of a novel: but what reason there could have been when you came to me last winter against your coming--no--that is more than I can comprehend.' 'You are not to comprehend. It is my secret--my burden--which I must bear. I want you to believe me, that is all,--only to believe me when I say that I love you dearly, and that I have been unspeakably happy in your house--and just quietly let me go and seek my fortune elsewhere--without saying anything to anybody until I am gone.' 'And a nice weeping and wailing there will be from Bessie and her brothers and sisters when you _are_ gone!' exclaimed Miss Wendover; 'a pleasant time I shall have of it, with all of them--to say nothing of my own feelings. Do you think it is fair, Ida, to treat me like this; to make yourself pleasant to me, useful, necessary to me--to wind yourself into my heart--and then all at once, with a sudden wrench, to pluck yourself out again, and leave me to do without you? Do you call that fair play?' 'I know that it must seem like base ingratitude,' answered Ida, calm now, with a despairing calmness; 'but I cannot help myself. I am more proud than I can say that you should care for me--that my loving services have not been unwelcome. I know that you took me out of charity; and it is a delight to know that I have not been altogether a bad bargain. But I must go away.'