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should be so. My father was not happy about--things here, and charged me to get my brothers away when I could.'
'And as to holidays, you are near at hand, and most of the choir are of our own town. I think he may generally be spared for a good term at each holiday time. The organist is very considerate in giving leave of absence, even if he should turn out to have a dangerously good voice for solos. I will let you know when to send him up for examination, which he will pass easily. Good-bye. You must write to me if there is anything for me to do for you. One month more, and your father would have been one of my clergy, remember.'
Felix went back, flushed with gratification, and yet, to a certain degree, with confusion, and not exactly liking the prospect of being interrogated as to what the Bishop had said to him: indeed, he never told the whole of it to any one but Cherry. Somehow, though Wilmet was his counsellor and mainstay, Geraldine was the sharer of all those confidences that came spontaneously out of the full but reserved heart.
Besides, Wilmet was at present in such a trance of enjoyment of her twin sister, that she seemed scarcely able to enter into anything else. She went through her duties as usual, but with an effort to shake off her absorption in the thought of having Alda at home; and every moment she was not in sight of her darling seemed a cruel diminution of her one poor fortnight. Indeed it was tete-a-tetes that her exclusive tenderness craved above all; and she was often disappointed that Alda should be willing to go and visit Fernan Travis when they might have had a quarter of an hour together alone. How much more selfish she must have grown than Alda in this last half year!
Alda's talk was indeed full of interest, and gave a much better notion of her way of life than her letters did. She seemed to have been fully adopted as a daughter of the house, and to enjoy all the same privileges as Marilda; indeed, she had a good deal more credit with all varieties of te