Harriet Wesden had spoken more than once to Mattie of the Eveleighs, a family which plays no part in these pages, although, from Harriet's knowledge of it, every after page of this story will be influenced. A Miss Eveleigh, an only daughter, and a spoiled one, had been a schoolfellow of Harriet's; an intimacy had existed between them in the old days, and when school days were ended for good, a correspondence was kept up, which resulted, eventually, in flying visits to each other's houses—the house in Camberwell, and Miss Eveleigh's residence at New Cross.

Harriet, during the last week or two, had been spending her time at New Cross with the Eveleighs, much to the desolateness of the Camberwell domicile, and the dulness of Master Sidney Hinchford. But the visit was at an end on the morning of the day alluded to in our last chapter, and had it not been for his father's excitability, Sidney, who had mapped his plans out, would have abandoned the backgammon board and a-wooing gone.

It was as well that he did not, for Harriet Wesden at half-past seven in the evening entered the stationer's shop, and surprised Mattie by her late visit.

"Good gracious!" was Mattie's truly feminine ejaculation, "who would have thought of seeing you to-night? How well you are looking—how glad I am that you have come back—what a colour you have got!"

"Have I?" she said; "ah! it's the sharp frost that's in the streets to-night. Let me deliver father's message, and hurry back before he gets fidgety about me."

Harriet Wesden and Mattie went into the parlour, Mattie taking up her position by the door, so as to command the approach from the street, Harriet sitting by the fire with her head against the chimney-piece. The message was delivered, sundry little account books were wanted at once, and Harriet was to take them back with her; Mattie had to find them in the shop, and make them up into a little parcel for our heroine.

When she returned, Harriet was in the same position, staring very intently at the fire.

"Is anything the matter?" asked our heroine.

"Oh! no—what should be the matter, dear?"

"You're very thoughtful, and it's not exactly your look, Miss Harriet."

"Fancies again, Mattie," remarked Harriet; "I'm only a little tired, having walked from Camberwell."

"I hope you'll not walk back—it's getting late. Unless," she added, archly, "Mr. Sidney up-stairs is to see you safely home. That must be one of the nicest parts of courtship, to go arm-in-arm together about the streets—to feel yourself safe with him at your side."

Harriet's thoughtful demeanour vanished; she gave a merry laugh at the gravity with which Mattie delivered this statement, taunted Mattie with having thoughts of a lover running in her head, darted from that subject to the pleasant fortnight she had been spending with the Eveleighs at New Cross, detailed the particulars of her visit, the people to whom she had been introduced, and lively little incidents connected with them—finally caught up her parcel and bade Mattie good night.

"Ah! you'll wait till I call down Mr. Sidney, I'm sure."

"He'll think that I have called for him. No, I'm going home alone to-night."

"Why, what will he say?"

"Tell him that I was in a hurry, going home by omnibus to save time, and appease father's nervousness about me. I will not have any danglers in my train to-night. I'm in a bad temper—nervous, irritable and excitable—I shall only offend him."

"Then something has——"

"Good night, Mattie—oh! I had nearly forgotten to ask you to dine with us on Sunday; you'll be sure to come early?"

"Who told you to say that?"

"Why, my father, to be sure."

"I'm glad of it—I'm glad he thinks better of me," Mattie cried; "oh! Miss Harriet, you don't know how miserable I have been in my heart, lest he—lest he has thought differently of me lately!"

"More fancies! I have always said that they were fancies, Mattie."

"Ah! I guess pretty near to the truth sometimes."

"And tease yourself with a false idea more often—why, you will imagine that I shall think differently of you presently."

"No—I don't think you will."

"Never, Mattie."

"God bless you for that!—if ever I'm in trouble I shall look to you to defend me."

"And in my trouble, Mattie?" was the half-laughing rejoinder.

"I'll think of you only, fight for you against all your enemies—die for you, if it will do any good. Oh! Miss Harriet, you are growing up a lady very far above me, getting out of my reach like, you won't forget the little girl you were kind to, and shut her wholly from your heart?"

Harriet Wesden was touched; ever a sensitive girl, the sight of another's sorrow struck home. She went back a step or two into the parlour.

"This isn't like the old Mattie," she said, "the Mattie who always looked at the brightest side of life, and made the best of every difficulty. Is that silly affair of the robbery still preying on your mind?"

"On your father's perhaps—not on mine."

"Then I'll fight the battle for you to begin with—if there be really one doubt in my father's heart, I'll charge it from its hiding-place to-night. Perhaps I have been wrapped up too much lately in my own selfish thoughts when I might have helped you, Mattie. Will you forgive me?"

She stooped and kissed Mattie, whose arms closed round her for a minute with a loving clasp.

"I'm better now," said Mattie, "it was fancy, perhaps, a fancy that you, too, were going further away from me—perhaps thinking ill of me. For you were cold and distant when you came here first to-night."

"No, no."

"Well, that was my fancy, too, it's very likely. I'll say good night now, for it's getting late."

"Good night, then."

At the door she paused and returned.

"Mattie, put on your bonnet and come with me to the end of the street where the omnibus passes. I'm nervous to-night—I don't care to walk alone about these streets again."

"Let me call Mr. Sid——"

"No, no; you—not him!" she interrupted.

"I never leave the shop, Miss Harriet; it's my trust, and your father would not like it. Shall Ann——"

"Oh! it does not matter much; you have only made me nervous. I'm very wrong to seek to take you from the business, and father so particular and fidgety. I daresay no one will fly away with me. Good night, my dear."

She went away with a bright smile at her own nervousness. That was the last gleam of brightness there for awhile!

After that there settled on her face a confused expression, often a sad, always a thoughtful one, with a long look ahead, as it were from the depths of her blue eyes. From that night there was a change in her; Mattie, quick of observation, was the first to detect it. It was a face of trouble, and Mattie, seeing it now and then, could note the shadows deepen. Sidney observed it next, detected with a lover's jealous scrutiny a difference in her manner towards him, a something new which was colder and less friendly, and yet not demonstrative enough for him to murmur against, even if his half engagement had permitted him.

He asked her once if he had offended her, and she replied in the negative, and was kinder towards him for that night; but the reserve, indifference, coldness, or whatever it was, came back, and perplexed Sidney Hinchford more than he cared to own. The year of his novitiate was approaching to an end, and he thought that he could afford to wait till then; she was not tiring of him and his attentions, he had too good an opinion of himself to believe that; at times he solaced himself with the idea that she was reflecting on the gravity of the next step, that formal engagement to be married in the future to him.

Mattie and Sidney were both observers of some power, for after all they saw through the bright side—the forced side—of her. For the father and mother was reserved Harriet Wesden with her mask off.

Fathers and mothers are strangely blind to the causes of their daughters' ailments—this humble pair formed no exception to the rule. They were perplexed with her fits of brooding, her forced efforts to rally when taxed with them, her pallor, loss of appetite, red eyes and restless looks in the morning. Mr. Wesden, a suspicious man to the world in general, was the most trustful and simple as regarded his daughter; he did not know the depth of his love for her until she began to look ill, and then he almost worried her into a real illness by his suggestions and anxiety.

Mr. and Mrs. Wesden had many secret confabulations concerning the change in Harriet; pottering over a hundred fusty ideas, with never a thought as to the true one.

Was Camberwell disagreeing with her?—was the house damp, or her room badly situated?—had not the dear girl change enough, society enough?—what was the matter? Mr. Wesden set it down for "a low way"—an unaccountable complaint from which people suffer at times, and for which change of scene is good.

So he set to work studying the matter, originating small excursions for the day, submitting her to the healthy excitement of the winter course of lectures at the infant schools in the vicinity—lectures on artificial memory, on hydrostatics with experiments, on the poets with experiments also, and unaccountable ones they were—even once ventured into a box of the Surrey Theatre, and began to flatter himself and wife that at last Harriet was rapidly improving.

But Harriet Wesden was only learning rapidly to disguise that "something" which was perplexing her more and more with every day; learning to subdue her parents' anxiety, and sinking a little deeper all the new thoughts. But the whirl of events brought the secret uppermost, and betrayed her—she was forced to make a confidante, and she thought of Mattie, who had always loved her, and stood her friend—Mattie, in whom she was sure was the only one she could trust.

The confidence was placed suddenly, and at a time when Mattie was scarcely prepared for it—Mattie who yet, by some strange instinct, had been patiently waiting for it.

"I believe when that girl's in trouble, she will come to me," Mattie thought, "for she knows I would do anything to serve her. Have I any one to love except her in the world?—is there any one who requires so much love to keep her, what I call, strong?"

Mattie had seen that Harriet Wesden was not strong—that she was tender-hearted, affectionate, and weak—that there were times when she might give way without a strong heart and a stout hand to assist her. She had been a weak, impulsive, passionate child—she had grown up a woman very different to Mattie, whose firmness, and even hardness, had made Harriet wonder more than once. And Mattie had often wondered at Harriet in her turn—at her vanity and romantic ideas, and made excuses for her, as we all do, for those we love very dearly. She had even feared for her, until the half engagement with Sidney Hinchford had taken place, and then she had noticed that Harriet had become more staid and womanly, and was glad in her heart that it had happened thus.

Then finally and suddenly the last change swept over the surface of things—all the worse for our characters perhaps, but infinitely better for our story, which takes a new lease of life from this page.