what was the subject? Though I can't hear it all, you may tell me what it was to be about."
"About fifty things, or nothings. There's no one on earth, auntie, darling, but you I can talk anything over with; and I'll write, or, if you let me, come again for a day or two, very soon -- may I?"
"Of course, no," said her aunt gaily. "But we are not to be quite alone, all the time, mind. There are people who would not forgive me if I were to do anything so selfish, but I promise you ample time to talk -- you and I to ourselves; and now that I think, I should like to hear by the post, if you will write and say anything you like. You may be quite sure nobody shall hear a word about it."
By this time they had got to the hall-door.
"I'm sure of that, darling," and she kissed the kind old lady.
"And are you quite sure you would not like a servant to travel with you; he could sit beside the driver?"
"No, dear auntie, my trusty old Dulcibella sits inside to take care of me."
"Well, dear, are you quite sure? I should not miss him the least."
"Quite, dear aunt, I assure you."
"And you know you told me you were quite happy at Wyvern," said Lady Wyndale, returning her farewell caress, and speaking low, for a servant stood at the chaise-door.
"Did I? Well, I shouldn't have said that, for -- I'm not happy," whispered Alice Maybell, and the tears sprang to her eyes as she kissed her old kinswoman; and then, with her arms still about her neck, there was a brief look from her large, brimming eyes, while her lip trembled; and suddenly she turned, and before Lady Wyndale had recovered from that little shock, her pretty guest was seated in the chaise, the door shut, and she drove away.
"What can it be, poor little thing?" thought Lady Wyndale, as her eyes anxiously followed the carriage in its flight down the avenue.
"They have shot her pet-pigeon, or the dog has killed her guinea-pig, or old Fairfield won't allow her to sit up till twelve o'clock at night, reading her novel. Some childish misery, I dare say, poor little soul!"
But for all that she was not satisfied, and her poor, pale, troubled look haunted her.
Chapter II.
The Vale Of Carwell
In about an hour and a half this chaise reached the Pied Horse, on Elverstone Moor. Having changed horses at this inn, they resumed their journey, and Miss Alice Maybell, who had been sad and abstracted, now lowered the window beside her, and looked out upon the broad, shaggy heath, rising in low hillocks, and breaking here and there into pools -- a wild, and on the whole a monotonous and rather dismal expanse.
"How fresh and pleasant the air is here, and how beautiful the purple of the heath!" exclaimed the young lady with animation.
"There now -- that's right -- beautiful it is, my darling; that's how I like to see my child -- pleasant-like and 'appy, and not mopin' and dull, like a sick bird. Be that way always; do, dear."
"You're a kind old thing," said the young lady, placing her slender hand fondly on her old nurse's arm, "good old Dulcibella: you're always to come with me wherever I go."
"That's just what Dulcibella'd like," answered the old woman, who was fat, and liked her comforts, and loved Miss Alice more than many mothers love their own children, and had answered the same reminders, in the same terms, a good many thousand times in her life.
Again the young lady was looking out of the window -- not like one enjoying a landscape as it comes, but with something of anxiety in her countenance, with her head through the open window, and gazing forward as if in search of some expected object.
"Do you remember some old trees standing together at the end of this moor, and a ruined windmill, on a hillock?" she asked suddenly.
"Well," answered Dulcibella, who was not of an observant turn, "I suppose I do, Miss Alice; perhaps there is."
"I remember it very well, but not where it is; and when last we passed, it was dark," murmured the young lady to herself, rather than to Dulcibella, whom upon such points she did not much mind. "Suppose we ask the driver?"
She tapped at the window behind the box, and signed to the man, who looked over his shoulder. When he had pulled up she opened the front window and said --
"There's a village a little way on -- isn't there?"
"Shuldon -- yes'm, two mile and a bit," he answered.
"Well, before we come to it, on the left there is a grove of tall trees and an old windmill," continued the pretty young lady, looking pale.
"Gryce's mill we call it, but it don't go this many a day."
"Yes, I dare say; and there is a road that turns off to the left, just under that old mill?"
"That'll be the road to Church Carwell."
"You must drive about three miles along that road."
"That'll be out o' the way, ma'am -- three, and three back -- six miles -- I don't know about the hosses."
"You must try, I'll pay you -- listen," and she lowered her voice. "There's one house -- an old house -- on the way, in the Vale of Carwell; it is called Carwell Grange -- do you know it?"
"Yes'm; but there's no one livin' there."
"No matter -- there is; there is an old woman whom I want to see; that's where I want to go, and you must manage it, I shan't delay you many minutes, and you're to tell no one, either on the way or when you get home, and I'll give you two pounds for yourself."
"All right," he answered, looking hard in the pale face and large dark eyes that gazed on him eagerly from the window. "Thank'ye, Miss, all right, we'll wet their mouths at the Grange, or you wouldn't mind waiting till they get a mouthful of oats, I dessay?"
"No, certainly; anything that is necessary, only I have a good way still to go before evening, and you won't delay more than you can help?"
"Get along, then," said the man, briskly to his horses, and forthwith they were again in motion.
The young lady pulled up the window, and leaned back for some minutes in her place.
"And where are we going to, dear Miss Alice?" inquired Dulcibella, who dimly apprehended that they were about to deviate from the straight way home, and feared the old Squire, as other Wyvern folk did.
"A very little way, nothing of any consequence; and Dulcibella, if you really love me as you say, one word about it, to living being at Wyvern or anywhere else, you'll never say -- you promise?"
"You know me well, Miss Alice -- I don't talk to no one; but I'm sorry-like to hear there's anything like a secret. I dread secrets."
"You need not fear this -- it is nothing, no secret, if people were not unreasonable, and it shan't be a secret long, perhaps, only be true to me."
"True to you! Well, who should I be true to if not to you, darling, and never a word about it will pass old Dulcibella's lips, talk who will; and are we pretty near it?"
"Very near, I think; it's only to see an old woman, and get some information from her, nothing, only I don't wish it to be talked about, and I know you won't."
"Not a word, dear. I never talk to any one, not I, for all the world."
In a few minutes more they crossed a little bridge spanning a brawling stream, and the chaise turned the corner of a by-road to the left, under the shadow of a group of tall and sombre elms, overtopped by the roofless tower of the old windmill. Utterly lonely was the road, but at first with only a solitariness that partook of the wildness and melancholy of the moor which they had been traversing. Soon, however, the uplands at either side drew nearer, grew steeper, and the scattered bushes gathered