Elinor was at Goodwood, her name in all the society papers, and even a description of one of her dresses, which delighted and made proud the whole population of Windyhill. The paper which contained it, and which, I believe, belonged originally to Miss Dale, passed from hand to hand through almost the entire community; the servants getting it at last, and handing it round among the humbler friends, who read it, half a dozen women together round a cottage door, wiping their hands upon their aprons before they would touch the paper, with many an exclamation and admiring outcry. And then her name appeared among the lists of smart people who were going to the North--now here, now there--in company with many other fine names. It gave the Windyhill people a great deal of amusement, and if Mrs. Dennistoun did not quite share this feeling it was a thing for which her friends blamed her gently. “For only think what a fine thing for Elinor to go everywhere among the best people, and see life like that!” “My dear friend,” said the Rector, “you know we cannot hope to keep our children always with us. They must go out into the world while we old birds stay at home; and we must not--we really must not--grudge them their good times, as the Americans say.” It was more wonderful than words could tell to Mrs. Dennistoun that it should be imagined she was grudging Elinor her “good time!” The autumn went on, with those occasional public means of following her footsteps which, indeed, made even John Tatham--who was not in an ordinary way addicted to the _Morning Post_, being after his fashion a Liberal in politics and far from aristocratical in his sentiments generally--study that paper, and also other papers less worthy: and with, of course, many letters from Elinor, which gave more trustworthy accounts of her proceedings. These letters, however, were far less long, far less detailed, than they had once been; often written in a hurry, and short, containing notes of where she was going, and of a continual change of address, rather than of anything that could be called information about herself. John, I think, went only once to the Cottage during the interval which followed. He went abroad as usual in the Long Vacation, and then he had this on his mind--that he had half-surreptitiously obtained a new light upon the position of Elinor, which he had every desire to keep from her mother; for Mrs. Dennistoun, though she felt that her child was not happy, attributed that to any reason rather than a failure in her husband’s love. Elinor’s hot rejection of the very idea of leaving Phil, her dislike of any suggestion to that effect, even for a week, even for a day, seemed to her mother a proof that her husband, at all events, remained as dear to her as ever; and John would rather have cut his tongue out than betray any chance rumour he heard--and he heard many--to this effect. He was of opinion, indeed, that in London, and especially at a London club, not