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And she recalled all the past, from the day when Miss Hilary hung up her bonnet for her in the house-place at Stowbury; the dreary life at No. 15; the Sunday nights when she and Tom Cliffe used to go wandering round and round the square. "Poor Tom," said she to herself, thinking of Ascott Leaf, and how happy he had looked, and how happy his aunts would be to-morrow.
Elizabeth, having cleared away her tea-things, stood listening to the voices in the parlor, and pondering. She had sometimes wondered in her own mind that no knight ever came to carry off her charming princess her admired and beloved Miss Hilary. Miss Hilary, on her part, seemed totally indifferent to the youths at Stowbury; who indeed were, Elizabeth allowed, quite unworthy her regard.
She thought Miss Hilary might not quite like Tom's knowing where she lived, or what her occupation was, lest he might gossip about it to Stowbury people; so she determined to pay her visit by herself, and appointed to meet him at a certain hour on Richmond Bridge, over which bridge she watched him march sulkily, not without a natural pleasure that he should be so much vexed at losing her company for an hour or two.
Her own lot seemed easy enough for herself; but for Hilary she would like to see Hilary something better than a poor schoolmistress at Stowbury. No more was said at that time, but Johanna had the deep, still, Mary-like nature, which "kept" things, and "pondered them in her heart."
Nothing struck Hilary more than the self-absorbed look of passers-by: each so busy on his own affairs, that, in spite of Selina's alarm, for all notice taken of them, they might as well be walking among the cows and horses in Stowbury field. Poor old Stowbury!
His godfather had still continued his allowance, though once or twice, when he came down to Stowbury, he had asked his aunts to help him in small debts the last time in one a little more serious; when, after some sad and sore consultation, it had been resolved to tell him he must contrive to live within his own allowance.
When she saw this little fat man, coarse and common looking in spite of his good clothes and diamond ring, and in manner a curious mixture of pomposity and awkwardness, she laughed to herself, thinking what a very uninteresting individual it was about whom Stowbury had told so many interesting stories.
Two new portmanteaus and a splendid hat-box east either ignominy or glory upon the poor Stowbury luggage; and Elizabeth's sharp eye noticed there was also his trunk which she had seen lying detained for rent in his Gower Street lodgings.
And again she felt the strong conviction, that whatever his father had been, or his mother, of whom they had heard nothing till she was dead, Ascott could not have lived all these years of his childhood and early boyhood with his three aunts at Stowbury without gaining at least some good, which might counteract the hereditary evil; as such evil can be counteracted, even as hereditary disease can be gradually removed by wholesome and careful rearing in a new generation.
This was all her adventure. When she came to tell it, it seemed very little to tell, and Miss Hilary listened to it rather indifferently, trying hard to remember who Tommy Cliffe was, and to take an interest in him because he came from Stowbury. But Stowbury days were so far off now with such a gulf or pain between. Suddenly the same fear occurred to her that had occurred to Elizabeth.
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