The younger girls lamented his desertion of “the Ferns” and the loss of his library; but to Hilary these months were days of peace and happiness compared with preceding excitement; and she tried hard to persuade her sisters that Mr. Paine had as many books as they could read, and more than they could remember. One other slight diversion they had, namely, the reappearance of Mr. Farrington, who came down for part of the long vacation, and took lodgings in the forest. He was an old acquaintance and friend of Mrs. Paine’s, and was a great deal with them at Primrose Bank, and consequently often in the society of the sisters at the Vicarage. Not quite so often, perhaps, as he could wish; for Hilary, grown wiser by experience, began to suspect that young men did not seek the society of girls entirely without an object, and became shy of encouraging a kind of intercourse, which, within her knowledge, had more often ended disastrously than otherwise. She could not help seeing that the young barrister admired Sybil exceedingly; but she knew, that though her sister was womanly in manners and appearance, she was childlike in disposition and character. Not quite sixteen, she was too young to think of matrimony; and while she continued indifferent to Mr. Farrington and quite careless about his attentions, Hilary did not wish him to become more demonstrative. Mrs. Paine agreed with her, indeed this caution originated with that lady; and one day she took on herself to communicate to the gentleman the extreme youth of the object of his admiration. This brought on a confidential conversation between the lady and the gentleman, in which he informed her that he was quite willing to wait a year or two, but that he was bent on making Sybil Duncan his wife hereafter. Then, if his business continued to flourish as it had done lately, he should by that time have a fair income to offer her, so he implored Mrs. Paine in the mean while, to give him a good character to that discreet, matronly, elder sister, who now looked as suspiciously on his attempt to be agreeable as if she had to defend from desperate fortune-hunters an heiress of ten thousand a year. Mrs. Paine laughed, and promised to speak pretty well of him; and when the vacation ended, Mr. Farrington was obliged to return to London, where, in spite of his love for Sybil, there seems no reason to think he was either miserable or morose. So passed the autumn and early winter. Christmas brought the Barhams to the Abbey, and Hilary was thinking with much interest and much curiosity of Dora and her feelings, for it was some weeks since she had heard from her; when a servant from the Abbey brought over a note to ask Mr. Duncan and his eldest daughter to pay them a visit, with a promise of the carriage to fetch them one day, and to take them back the next.