That evening Elise forbore to go out into the garden with John, and sang Gounod’s “There Is a Green Hill Far Away” instead, in the presence of the assembled family. John had never appreciated sacred music, and he hated Gounod from that hour. Hermione warned Elise how soon she could exhaust the affections of her husband by permitting a demonstrative regard. “Do not rebuff him,” she explained gently, “but evade him.” Elise tried to evade John, and neither of them liked it. Hermione told Elise how difficult young married life is, and Elise, to whom it had come as easily as sunshine, began to see in it obstacles and perils to John’s happiness and her own, which would have been exaggerated in a jungle exclusively tenanted by wild beasts. It never occurred to Elise that Hermione could be wrong; because Hermione loved her so much and had been so unhappy herself, and only wanted to save and shield Elise from a similar unhappiness. Elise became pale with apprehension over the disasters and pitfalls which lay ahead of herself and John, and even for the gardener’s wife who had been married the week before, and did not look as if it had made any difference. Elise would have liked to ask her father’s help but that might seem as if she had not perfect confidence in John, and she would have loved to talk to John about it, only that might seem as if she had not perfect confidence in Hermione, so that she decided to keep her anxieties to herself. She struggled manfully on, evading John, and seeing that Mr. Brett was regularly and carefully attended to, even when he wanted to be left alone. “I should never,” Hermione carefully explained to Elise, “leave dear Papa to stroll about by himself, or even sit for any length of time, without running in to see if he is still alive. At any moment we may lose him.” Of course Hermione could not take this duty upon herself, partly because of Mr. Brett’s inexplicable dislike to her company, brought on, no doubt, by a diseased state of mind; and partly because her own health required the utmost watchfulness and repose. But Elise could make a point of running in and out and following Mr. Brett up, without any grave consequences to anybody, and if it interrupted her persistent tête-à-tête with John, so much the more precious would she make this rare companionship. “I do not want you ever to think of me,” Hermione said tenderly, “if I never see your face from one day’s end to the other, Childie, I shall not complain! All yesterday I sat alone, hour after hour, while you went fishing with John. I thought of Papa once or twice and I was anxious at your staying out so late—but for the rest, I want you to dismiss your little old sister from your mind. I am one of those whose path in life is cut out for loneliness.”