While the Lodge remained in this ferment of suspense and uncertainty, Miss Anastasia had taken her measures for its defence and preservation. It was wearing now towards the end of October, and winter was setting in darkly. There was no more than a single rose at a time now upon the porch, and these roses looked so pale, pathetic, and solitary, that it was rather sad than pleasant to see the lonely flowers. On one of the darkest days of the month, when they were all rather more listless than usual, Miss Anastasia’s well-known equipage drew up at the gate. They all hailed it with some pleasure. It was an event in the dull day and discouraging atmosphere. She came in with her loud cheerful voice, her firm step, her energetic bearing—and even the pretty fiancÉe Marian raised her pretty stooping shoulders, and woke up from her fascinated musing. Rachel alone drew shyly towards the door; she had not overcome a timidity very nearly approaching fear, which she always felt in presence of Miss Anastasia. She was the only person who ever entered this house who made Rachel remember again her life at the Hall.

“I came to show you a letter from your boy; read it while I talk to the children,” said Miss Rivers. Mrs Atheling took the letter with some nervousness; she was a little fluttered, and lost the sense of many of the expressions; yet lingered over it, notwithstanding, with pride and exultation. She longed very much to have an opportunity of showing it to Agnes; but that was not possible; so Mrs Atheling made a virtuous attempt to preserve in her memory every word that her son said. This was Charlie’s letter to his patroness:—

Charlie had never written to a lady before; he was a little embarrassed about it the first time, but this was his second epistle, and he had become a little more at his ease. The odd thing about the correspondence was, that Charlie did not express either hopes or opinions; he did not say what he expected, or what were his chances of success—he only reported what he was doing; any speculation upon the subject, more especially at this crisis, would have been out of Charlie’s way.

“What do you call your brother when you write to him?” asked Miss Anastasia abruptly, addressing Rachel.

Rachel coloured violently; she had so nearly forgotten her old system—her old representative character—that she was scarcely prepared to answer such a question. With a mixture of her natural manner and her assumed one, she answered at last, in considerable confusion, “We call him Louis; he has no other name.”

“Then he will not take the name of Rivers?” said Miss Anastasia, looking earnestly at the shrinking girl.

“We have no right to the name of Rivers,” said Rachel, drawing herself up with her old dignity, like a little queen. “My brother is inquiring who we are. We never belonged to Lord Winterbourne.”

“Your brother is inquiring? So!” said Miss Anastasia; “and he is perfectly right. Listen, child—tell him this from me—do you know what Atheling means? It means noble, illustrious, royally born. In the old Saxon days the princes were called Atheling. Tell your brother that Anastasia Rivers bids him bear this name.”

This address entirely confused Rachel, who remained gazing at Miss Rivers blankly, unable to say anything. Marian stirred upon her chair with sudden eagerness, and put down her needlework, gazing also, but after quite a different fashion, in Miss Anastasia’s face. The old lady caught the look of both, but only replied to the last.

“You are startled, are you, little beauty? Did you never hear the story of Margaret Atheling, who was an exile, and a saint, and a queen? My child, I should be very glad to make sure that you were a true Atheling too.”

Marian was not to be diverted from her curiosity by any such observation. She cast a quick look from Miss Rivers to her mother, who was pondering over Charlie’s letter, and from Mrs Atheling to Agnes, who had not been startled by the strange words of Miss Anastasia; and suspicion, vague and unexplainable, began to dawn in Marian’s mind.

“The autumn assizes begin to-day,” said Miss Anastasia with a little triumph; “too soon, as Mr Temple managed it, for your case to have a hearing; it must stand over till the spring now—six months—by that time, please God; we shall be ready for them. Agnes Atheling, how long is it since you began to be deaf and blind?”

Agnes started with a little confusion, and made a hurried inarticulate answer. There was a little quiet quarrel all this time going on between Agnes and Miss Rivers; neither the elder lady nor the younger was quite satisfied—Agnes feeling herself something like a conspirator, and Miss Anastasia a little suspicious of her, as a disaffected person in the interest of the enemy. But Mamma by this time had come to an end of Charlie’s letter, and, folding it up very slowly, gave it back to its proprietor. The good mother did not feel it at all comfortable to keep this information altogether to herself.

“It is not to be tried till spring!” said Mrs Atheling, who had caught this observation. “Then, I think, indeed, Miss Rivers, we must go home.”

And, to Mamma’s great comfort, Miss Anastasia made no objection. She said kindly that she should miss her pleasant neighbours. “But what may be in the future, girls, no one knows,” said Miss Rivers, getting up abruptly. “Now, however, before this storm comes on, I am going home.”