We parted for another day with that agreement; and, strange as people may think it, I was quite a heroine in Aunt Connor’s house that night. The girls both came up to my room and made me tell them all about it, and laughed and kissed me, and teased me, and cried over me, and did all sorts of kind foolish things. They found out my ring tied round my neck, and made me put it on; and they kept constantly running back and forward from their own room to mine with little presents for me. Not much, to be sure; but I was only a girl, though I was married, and liked them. There was somebody to dinner, so I did not go downstairs, but when the strangers were gone, there was a little supper in my honour, and Aunt Connor made some negus with her own hand, and ordered them all to drink dear Milly’s health the last night she would be at home. I could have really thought they loved me that last night. They did not, however; only, though it might not be very steady or constant, they were kind, kind at the heart; and when one was just at the turn of one’s life, and all one’s heart moved and excited, they could no more have refused their sympathy than they could have denied their nature; and being very much shocked and angry at first did not make the least difference to this. The girls were twenty times fonder of me that night than if I had been married ever so properly,--dear, kind, foolish Irish hearts! But all the while there was a strange uneasy look in Aunt Connor’s face. I divined somehow, I cannot tell by what means, that there was something she ought to tell me which she either was afraid or unwilling to let me know, or had some object in keeping from me. She must be an innocent woman, surely, or I never could have read that so clear in her face. CHAPTER IV. The next morning Harry came radiant, quite like a new man. Was it all for joy of taking me home? or, perhaps he had got the money on this most convenient of all mornings? but such things don’t often happen just at the most suitable time. He came rushing in with a kind of shout,--“Milly, we’ve orders to march; we’re going next week. Hurrah!” cried Harry. “And why hurrah?” said I. “We’ll have ourselves to ourselves, and nobody in our way,” he said; but just then seeing Aunt Connor, who was at the other end of the room, stopped short and looked a little confused. He had not intended to say anything ill-natured to her. “Oh, I am not affronted; you’re excusable, you’re quite excusable,” said Aunt Connor; “and I believe it _is_ very lucky; you’ll have a fresh start, and nobody will know how foolish you have been. I was too angry to ask yesterday, or to think of anything but that deluded child there, that thinks herself so happy;--but young Langham, dear, have ye any friends?” “None to whom I am answerable,” said Harry.