"I am Anna Forrest," she said; "Mrs Hunt asked me to come in--she went to find you. You are Delia, are you not?" She had a bright, frank manner, with an entire absence of shyness, which attracted Delia immediately. She found, on inquiry, that Mrs Hunt had met Anna in the town with her aunt, and had asked her to come in. Mrs Forrest had driven home, and Anna was to walk back after tea. "And have you been waiting long?" asked Delia. "It must have been an hour, I think," said Anna, "because I heard the church clock. But it hasn't seemed long," she added, hastily; "I've been looking out at the pigeons in the garden." Delia felt no doubt whatever that Mrs Hunt had been called off in some other direction, and had completely forgotten her guest. However, here was Anna at last. "Come up-stairs and take off your hat in my room," she said. Delia's room was at the top of the house--a garret with a window looking across the red-tiled roofs of the town to the distant meadows, through which glistened the crooked silver line of the river Dorn. She was fond of standing at this window in her few idle moments, with her arms crossed on the high ledge, and her gaze directed far-away: to it were confided all the hopes, and wishes, and dreams, which were, as a rule, carefully locked up in her own breast, and of which only one person in Dornton even guessed the existence. Anna glanced curiously round as she entered. The room had rather a bare look, after the bright prettiness of Waverley, though it contained all Delia's most cherished possessions--a shelf of books, a battered old brown desk, her music-stand, and her violin. "Oh," she exclaimed, as her eye fell on the last, "can you play the violin? Will you play to me?" Delia hesitated: she was not fond of playing to people who did not care for music, though she was often obliged to do so; but Anna pressed her so earnestly that she did not like to be ungracious, and, taking up her violin, played a short German air, which she thought might please her visitor. Anna meanwhile paid more attention to her new acquaintance than to her performance, and looked at her with great interest. There was something about Delia's short, compact figure; her firm chin; the crisp, wavy hair which rose from her broad, low forehead like a sort of halo, which gave an impression of strength and reliability not unmingled with self-will. This last quality, however, was not so marked while she was playing. Her face then was at its best, and its usual somewhat defiant air softened into a wistfulness which was almost beauty. Before the tune was finished, Anna was quite ready to rush into a close friendship, if Delia would respond to it, but of this she felt rather in doubt. "How beautifully you play!" she exclaimed, as Delia dropped her bow, and shut up her music-book. A very little smile curled Delia's lips.