The last lines were crowded into the smallest possible space, and there had hardly been room enough for her name at the end. She glanced at the clock as she folded the letter, and finding that there was only just time to catch the post she rang for a servant and told her to take it at once. Then she took her old stand in the window, and watched the girl hurrying up the Close, holding the white letter carelessly, and waving it to and fro on a level with her shoulder as she went. "I wish I had had time to re-write it," Evadne thought; "shall I call her back? No. Anything will be better for mother than another day's suspense. But I think I might have expressed myself better. I don't know, though." She turned from the window, and met her aunt's kind eyes fixed upon her. "You are flushed, Evadne," the latter said. "Were you writing home?" "Yes, auntie," Evadne answered wearily. "You are looking more worried than I have seen you yet." "I _am_ worried, auntie, and I lost my temper. I could not help it, and I am dissatisfied. I know I have said too much, and I have said the same thing over and over again, and gone round and round the subject, too, and altogether I am disheartened." "I cannot imagine you saying too much about anything, Evadne," Mrs. Orton Beg commented, smiling. "When I am speaking, you mean. But that is different. I am always afraid to speak, but I dare write anything. The subject is closed now, however. I shall write no more." She advanced listlessly, and leaned against the mantelpiece close beside the couch on which her aunt was lying. "Have you ever felt compelled to say something which all the time you hate to say, and afterward hate yourself for having said? That is what I always seem to be doing now." She looked up at the cathedral as she spoke. "How I envy you your power to say exactly what you mean," she added. "Who told you I always say exactly what I mean?" her aunt asked, smiling. "Well, exactly what you ought to say, then," Evadne answered, responding to the smile. Mrs. Orton Beg sighed and resumed her knitting. She was making some sort of wrap out of soft white wool, and Evadne noticed the glint of her rings as she worked, and also the delicacy of her slender white hands as she held them up in the somewhat tiring attitude which her position on the couch necessitated. "How patient you are, auntie," Evadne said, and then she bent down and kissed her forehead and cheeks. "It is easy to be patient when one's greatest trial is only the waiting for a happy certainty," Mrs. Orton Beg answered. "But you will be patient too, Evadne, sooner or later. You are at the passionate age now, but the patient one will come all in good time." "You have always a word of comfort," Evadne said. "There is one word more I would say, although I do not wish to influence you," Mrs. Orton Beg began hesitatingly.