The next day he called on Miss Wilkins herself.She would have been very glad if he had kept on in his ignorance;it was so keenly painful to be in the company of one the sight of whom,even at a distance,had brought her such a keen remembrance of past misery;and when told of his call,as she was sitting at her sewing in the dining-room,she had to nerve herself for the interview before going upstairs into the drawing-room,where he was being entertained by Miss Monro with warm demonstrations of welcome.A little contraction of the brow,a little compression of the lips,an increased pallor on Ellinor's part,was all that Miss Monro could see in her,though she had put on her glasses with foresight and intention to observe.She turned to the canon;his colour had certainly deepened as he went forwards with out-stretched hand to meet Ellinor.That was all that was to be seen;but on the slight foundation of that blush,Miss Monro built many castles;and when they faded away,one after one,she recognised that they were only baseless visions.She used to put the disappointment of her hopes down to Ellinor's unvaried calmness of demeanour,which might be taken for coldness of disposition;and to her steady refusal to allow Miss Monro to invite Canon Livingstone to the small teas they were in the habit of occasionally giving.Yet he persevered in his calls;about once every fortnight he came,and would sit an hour or more,looking covertly at his watch,as if as Miss Monro shrewdly observed to herself,he did not go away at last because he wished to do so,but because he ought.Sometimes Ellinor was present,sometimes she was away;in this latter case Miss Monro thought she could detect a certain wistful watching of the door every time a noise was heard outside the room.He always avoided any reference to former days at Hamley,and that,Miss Monro feared,was a bad sign.
After this long uniformity of years without any event closely touching on Ellinor's own individual life,with the one great exception of Mr.Corbet's marriage,something happened which much affected her.Mr.Ness died suddenly at his parsonage,and Ellinor learnt it first from Mr.Brown,a clergyman,whose living was near Hamley,and who had been sent for by the Parsonage servants as soon as they discovered that it was not sleep,but death,that made their master so late in rising.
Mr.Brown had been appointed executer by his late friend,and wrote to tell Ellinor that after a few legacies were paid,she was to have a life-interest in the remainder of the small property which Mr.Ness had left,and that it would be necessary for her,as the residuary legatee,to come to Hamley Parsonage as soon as convenient,to decide upon certain courses of action with regard to furniture,books,&c.
Ellinor shrank from this journey,which her love and duty towards her dead friend rendered necessary.She had scarcely left East Chester since she first arrived there,sixteen or seventeen years ago,and she was timorous about the very mode of travelling;and then to go back to Hamley,which she thought never to have seen again!She never spoke much about any feelings of her own,but Miss Monro could always read her silence,and interpreted it into pretty just and forcible words that afternoon when Canon Livingstone called.She liked to talk about Ellinor to him,and suspected that he liked to hear.She was almost annoyed this time by the comfort he would keep giving her;there was no greater danger in travelling by railroad than by coach,a little care about certain things was required,that was all,and the average number of deaths by accidents on railroads was not greater than the average number when people travelled by coach,if you took into consideration the far greater number of travellers.Yes!returning to the deserted scenes of one's youth was very painful ...Had Miss Wilkins made any provision for another lady to take her place as visitor at the school?He believed it was her week.Miss Monro was out of all patience at his entire calmness and reasonableness.Later in the day she became more at peace with him,when she received a kind little note from Mrs.Forbes,a great friend of hers,and the mother of the family she was now teaching,saying that Canon Livingstone had called and told her that Ellinor had to go on a very painful journey,and that Mrs.Forbes was quite sure Miss Monro's companionship upon it would be a great comfort to both,and that she could perfectly be set at liberty for a fortnight or so,for it would fall in admirably with the fact that "Jeanie was growing tall,and the doctor had advised sea air this spring;so a month's holiday would suit them now even better than later on."Was this going straight to Mrs.Forbes,to whom she should herself scarcely have liked to name it,the act of a good,thoughtful man,or of a lover?questioned Miss Monro;but she could not answer her own inquiry,and had to be very grateful for the deed,without accounting for the motives.
A coach met the train at a station about ten miles from Hamley,and Dixon was at the inn where the coach stopped,ready to receive them.