She attired herself in a rather handsome shawl and close straw bonnet, and went down the cliff after the required eggs. Jane sat at the open parlour window, busy over the last of Mrs. Castlemaine's handkerchiefs. She wore her neat morning print gown, with its small white collar and bow of fresh lilac ribbon, and looked cool and pretty. Miss Hallet grumbled frightfully at anything like extravagance in dress; but at the same time would have rated Jane soundly had she seen her untidy or anything but nice in any one particular. When the echo of her aunt's footsteps had fully died away, Jane laid the handkerchief on the table, and took from her pocket some other material, which she began to work at stealthily. That's the right word for it--stealthily. For she glanced cautiously around as if the very moss on the cliff side would take note of it, and she kept her ears well on the alert, to guard against surprise. Miss Hallet had told her she did not get on very quickly with the handkerchiefs: but Miss Hallet did not know, or suspect, that when times were propitious--namely, when she herself was away from observation, or Jane safely shut up in her own room--the handkerchiefs were discarded for this other work. And yet, the work regarded casually, presented no private or ugly features. It looked like a strip of fine lawn, and was just as nice-looking and snowy as the cambric on the table. Jane's fingers plied quickly their needle and thread. Presently she slipped a pattern of thin paper out of her pocket, unfolded it, and began to cut the lawn according to its fashion. While thus occupied, her attentive ear caught the sound of approaching footsteps: in a trice, pattern and work were in her pocket again out of sight, and she was diligently pursuing the hem-stitching of the handkerchief. A tall, plain girl, with straggling curls of a deep red darkened the window: Miss Susan Pike, daughter of Pike, the well-to-do grocer and general dealer. Deep down in Jane Hallet's heart there had always lain an instinctive consciousness, warning her that she was superior to this girl, as well as to Matty Nettleby, of quite a different order altogether: but the young crave companionship, and will have it, suitable or unsuitable, where it is to be had. The only young lady in the place was Ethel Reene, and Jane Hallet's good sense told her that that companionship would be just as unsuitable the other way: she might as well aspire to covet an intimacy with a duchess's daughter as with Miss Reene. "Weil, you are hard at work this morning, Jane!" was Miss Susan Pike's unceremonious and somewhat resentful salutation, as she put her hands upon the window-sill and, her head inside. For she did not at all favour work herself. "Will you come in, Susan?" returned Jane, rising and unslipping the bolt of the door: which she had slipped after the departure of her aunt.