She had declared that she wanted to do something for her future husband, and she would begin that something at once.

And in this matter she did not belie her promises to herself, or allow her good intentions to evaporate unaccomplished.

She soon surrounded herself with harder tasks than those embroidered slippers with which she indulged herself immediately after his departure.

And Mrs Dale and Bell, though in their gentle way they laughed at her,--nevertheless they worked with her, sitting sternly to their long tasks, in order that Crosbie's house might not be empty when their darling should go to take her place there as his wife.
But it was absolutely necessary that the letter should be answered.
It would in her eyes have been a great sin to have let that day's post go without carrying a letter from her to Courcy Castle,--a sin of which she felt no temptation to be guilty.

It was an exquisite pleasure to her to seat herself at her little table, with her neat desk and small appurtenances for epistle-craft, and to feel that she had a letter to write in which she had truly much to say.