"My generous friends!... May I hope that the affection shewn to me in sorrow will not be withdrawn now that sorrow is past?... May I hope that we shall meet again, and that I may have the great happiness of making my dear aunt known to you? She is all kindness, and would take me to Cheltenham, that I might thank you in person for the aid so generously offered in my hour of need, but I fear poor Mrs. Barnaby's adventures will for some time be too freshly remembered there for me to wish to revisit it...." When Agnes had written thus far, she stopped. "Where shall I tell them, aunt Betsy, that we are going to remain?" she said.... "If ... if Colonel Hubert" ... and she stopped again. "If Colonel Hubert ... and what then, Agnes?" "Why, if Colonel Hubert _were_ to pay us a visit, aunt Betsy, I cannot help thinking that he would understand me better now, than when I was so dreadfully overpowered by the feeling of my desolate condition.... Don't you think so?" "I think it very probable he might, my dear; ... and as to your sensible question, Agnes, of where we are going to be, I think you must decide it yourself. We have both declared against Cheltenham, and for reasons good.... Where then should you best like to go?" "To Clifton, aunt Betsy!... It was there I saw him first, and there, too, I was most kindly treated by friends who, I believe, pitied me because ... because I did not seem happy, I suppose.... Oh! I would rather go to Clifton than any place in the world ... excepting Empton." "And to Empton we cannot go just at present, Agnes ... it would be too much like running out of the world again, which I have no wish at all to do. To Clifton, therefore, we will go, dear child, and so you may tell your good friends." Agnes gave no other answer than walking round the table and imprinting a kiss upon the forehead of her happy aunt.... Then resuming her writing, she thus concluded her letter:-- "My aunt Compton, as soon as she has concluded some business which she has to settle in London, will go to Clifton, where, I believe, we shall stay for some months; and should any of your family happen again to be there, I may perhaps be happy enough to see them. With gratitude to all, I remain ever your attached and devoted "AGNES WILLOUGHBY." Poor Agnes!... She was terribly dissatisfied with her letter when she had written it. Not all her generalizations could suffice to tell him, THE him, the only mortal him she remembered in the world,--not all her innocent little devices to make it understood that _he_ was included in all her gratitude and love, as well as in her invitation to Clifton,--made it at all clear that she wanted Colonel Hubert to come and offer to her again. Yet what could she say more?... She sat with her eye fixed on the paper, and a face full of meaning, though what that meaning was, it might not be very easy to decide.