Mrs. Penniman started for church; but before she had arrived, she stopped and turned back, and before twenty minutes had elapsed she re-entered the house, looked into the empty parlours, and then went upstairs and knocked at Catherine’s door. She got no answer; Catherine was not in her room, and Mrs. Penniman presently ascertained that she was not in the house. “She has gone to him, she has fled!” Lavinia cried, clasping her hands with admiration and envy. But she soon perceived that Catherine had taken nothing with her—all her personal property in her room was intact—and then she jumped at the hypothesis that the girl had gone forth, not in tenderness, but in resentment. “She has followed him to his own door—she has burst upon him in his own apartment!” It was in these terms that Mrs. Penniman depicted to herself her niece’s errand, which, viewed in this light, gratified her sense of the picturesque only a shade less strongly than the idea of a clandestine marriage. To visit one’s lover, with tears and reproaches, at his own residence, was an image so agreeable to Mrs. Penniman’s mind that she felt a sort of æsthetic disappointment at its lacking, in this case, the harmonious accompaniments of darkness and storm. A quiet Sunday afternoon appeared an inadequate setting for it; and, indeed, Mrs. Penniman was quite out of humour with the conditions of the time, which passed very slowly as she sat in the front parlour in her bonnet and her cashmere shawl, awaiting Catherine’s return. This event at last took place. She saw her—at the window—mount the steps, and she went to await her in the hall, where she pounced upon her as soon as she had entered the house, and drew her into the parlour, closing the door with solemnity. Catherine was flushed, and her eye was bright. Mrs. Penniman hardly knew what to think. “May I venture to ask where you have been?” she demanded. “I have been to take a walk,” said Catherine. “I thought you had gone to church.” “I did go to church; but the service was shorter than usual. And pray, where did you walk?” “I don’t know!” said Catherine. “Your ignorance is most extraordinary! Dear Catherine, you can trust me.” “What am I to trust you with?” “With your secret—your sorrow.” “I have no sorrow!” said Catherine fiercely. “My poor child,” Mrs. Penniman insisted, “you can’t deceive me. I know everything. I have been requested to—a—to converse with you.” “I don’t want to converse!” “It will relieve you. Don’t you know Shakespeare’s lines?—‘the grief that does not speak!’ My dear girl, it is better as it is.” “What is better?” Catherine asked.