"If you knew me as well as I know myself," I said, reaching to her both my hands, "you would know that my gratitude towards you is deeper than the deepest depths of the earth." She took one of my hands. "If you have anything to be grateful for," she said, "it is for the lectures I have given you, and which, I am afraid, I ought to continue to give you. As to what was done here yesterday I consider myself as much benefited as anybody, and I suppose Sylvia is of the same opinion regarding herself. But there is one person to whom you truly ought to be grateful--Miss Laniston." "I know that," I said. "I have seen her; she told me what she did, and I treated her as I would treat a boy who had brushed my coat, but I shall make amends." "Indeed you shall," said Sylvia, "and I will go with you when you do it." "But you must not set yourself aside in this way," said I, addressing the older lady, "it was you who fanned my hopes of winning Sylvia when there seemed no reason why they should not fade away. It was you who promised to help me, and who did help me." "Did you do that, Marcia?" asked Sylvia. The beautiful woman who had been Mother Anastasia flushed a little, as she answered:-- "Yes, dear, but then you were only a sister on probation." "And you wanted me to marry him?" The other smiled and nodded, and in the next moment Sylvia's arms were about her neck, and Sylvia's lips were on her cheek. I was very much affected, and there is no knowing how my feelings and gratitude might have been evinced, had not the clumping of a trunk upon the stairs and the voices of sisters at the door called me to order. XLIX. MY OWN WAY. When I went home to my grandmother, she was greatly surprised to see me, and I lost no time in explaining my unexpected appearance. "Really, really," she exclaimed, "I was just writing you a letter, which I intended to send after you, so that you would get it when you arrived in London; and in it I was going to tell you all about the breaking up of the House of Martha, of which I first heard half an hour after you left me. I was glad you had not known of it before you started, for I thought it would be so much better for all the changes to be made while you were away, and for Sylvia to be in her mother's house, where she could get rid of her nunnish habits, and have some proper clothes made up. Of course I knew you would come back soon, but I thought your own mind would be in much better order for a little absence." "My dear grandmother," I cried, "in mind and body I am in perfect order, and it is presence, not absence, which made me so." "Somehow or other," said she, smiling, "the fates seem to help you to have your own way, and I am sure I am delighted that you will stay at home. And what has become of Mr. Walkirk?" "Upon my word!" I exclaimed--"I do not know."