Of course, it was different for her. She was looking forwards. She liked to talk; but more often she liked to be silent, and think. I would see her face change, then. I would lie at her side at night, and feel the turning, turning of her thoughts—feel her grow warm, perhaps blush in the dark; and then I knew she was thinking of Gentleman, working out how soon he''d come, wondering if he was thinking of her.—I could have told her, he was. But she never spoke of him, she never said his name. She only asked, once or twice, after my old aunty, that was supposed to be his nurse; and I wished she wouldn''t, for when I spoke of her I thought of Mrs Sucksby; and that made me home-sick.
And then there came the morning when we learned he was coming back. It was an ordinary morning, except that Maud had wo