‘Ah, but then you’ll write,’ said Elly. ‘Writing brings you back to a place more than merely coming with a message. If you don’t write regularly to me, I shall come to Mr. Cattley, and ask him, “Mr. Cattley, have you heard from Jack?” And then he’ll take it out, and read it to me; and so we’ll all three be together again.’ ‘Oh, I’ll write fast enough,’ said John, lightly, without any sense of the privilege it was to be permitted to write as often as he liked to Elly. ‘I shall have nothing else to do.’ Elly was not at all offended by this easy statement. She said, ‘Not at first; but after, when you come to know people, then you’ll drop off, I’m sure. Everybody does. I have heard Aunt Mary say so often, “Oh, wait till they get among their own friends.” But keep it up as long as you can be troubled, Jack; for I am not going among new friends, you know. Look here, Mr. Cattley has papa and Aunt Mary on his mantelpiece. He has hung papa only to keep Aunt Mary company, I’m sure. Now, let you and me leave him our photographs, one on each side. He’ll like it, and it will be a little surprise for him when he comes in.’ ‘He will like yours, I daresay,’ said Jack, ‘but mine? I am sure he can’t want mine: and I’ve not got one, that I know of.’ ‘Yes, you have,’ said Elly. ‘This is my own: I brought it with me on purpose; and, of course, Mrs. Sandford must have another copy, and she’ll give it me. Look here,’ said the girl, taking out two photographs, which she had placed together in an envelope. They were not very noble works of art. They were the production of a travelling photographer who had been in the village for a week, and in that time had ‘done’ everybody, both gentle and simple, in Edgeley. They represented two young, round faces, very staring as to likeness, but without other advantage: however, neither Elly nor John knew any better. And there was enough in that juxtaposition to have made the heart of a youth beat; but John’s heart remained perfectly at ease. It seemed to him, as to Elly, the most natural thing in the world that they should balance each other. Nor was he at all offended that she should give ‘my one,’ as she called it, to the curate, with the intention of getting another from his grandmother to fill the vacant place in her room when he was aware he had been placed beside ‘the other boys.’ There was no feeling about the matter that was not quite simple and straightforward. Elly took them out of their envelope, and attached them over the curate’s mantelpiece with two big pins. ‘I thought at one time,’ she said, ‘of giving him the frames, too, but then I thought it was better to pin them up--for if he cares for them very much he can get frames for them, and if he doesn’t it’s no great matter. All the same it will be you and me.’