and afterwards thought of many other messages which she might have sent, holding more, and better expressed. But that precious moment in touch with the Boy passed so quickly; and it seemed so impossible to think of anything but commonplace words, while Jenkins stood at attention near the table; and the telegraph-boy kept ringing his bicycle-bell outside, as a reminder that he waited. Yet her heart felt warmed and comforted by this momentary contact with the Boy. He still cared to know how she was. And it was so like him to put: "All's well." He wished her to know he had not gone down beneath his trouble. "Fanks, but I always does my own cawwying." Brave Little Boy Blue, of long ago! The expectation of the Professor's note or call remained, keeping her anxious; until she heard from Ann Harvey, that her brother had been obliged to go to London on business, and would not return until the evening. "Come to tea with me, dear child," the note concluded; "we have _much_ to say!" It seemed to Christobel that there remained nothing which Miss Ann had not already said, in every possible form and way. Nevertheless, she put on her hat, and went. Miss Ann had succeeded in impressing all her friends with the conviction that her wishes must never be thwarted. Miss Ann had named her villa "Shiloh," undoubtedly a suitable name, so far as she herself was concerned; her time being mostly spent upon a comfortable sofa in her tiny drawing-room; or reclining on a wicker lounge beneath the one tree in her small garden; or being carefully wheeled out in a bath-chair. But nobody else found Miss Ann's villa in any sense a "resting-place." She had a way of keeping everybody about her--from jaded Emma to the most casual caller--on the move, while she herself presented a delicate picture of frail inactivity. Immediately upon their arrival, her friends found an appointed task awaiting them; but it was always something which Miss Ann would have given to somebody else to do, had they not chanced at that moment to appear; and they were usually left with the feeling that the particular somebody else--whose _privilege_ they, in their well-meant zeal, had usurped--would have accomplished it better. Directing them from the sofa, Miss Ann kept her entourage busy and perpetually on the move. Yet she never felt she was asking much of them; nor, however weary at the conclusion of the task, did they ever feel much had been accomplished, owing to the judicious use of the word "just."