If not, please remember that my friends can always find me on Sunday afternoon .-- Yours very truly, ISABEL BRETHERTON.' Kendal's hand closed tightly over the note.

Then he put it carefully back into its envelope, and walked away with his hands behind him and the note in them, to stare out of window at the red roofs opposite.
'That is like her,' he murmured to himself; 'I wound and hurt her: she guesses I shall suffer for it, and, by way of setting up the friendly bond again, next day, without a word, she asks me to do her a kindness! Could anything be more delicate, more gracious!' Kendal never had greater difficulty in fixing his thoughts to his work than that morning, and at last, in despair, he pushed his book aside, and wrote an answer to Miss Bretherton, and, when that was accomplished, a long letter to his sister.

The first took him longer than its brevity seemed to justify.

It contained no reference to anything but her request.
He felt a compulsion upon him to treat the situation exactly as she had done, but, given this limitation, how much cordiality and respect could two sides of letterpaper be made to carry with due regard to decorum and grammar?
When he next met Wallace, that hopeful, bright-tempered person had entirely recovered his cheerfulness.

Miss Bretherton, he reported, had attacked the subject of _Elvira_ with him, but so lightly that he had no opportunity for saying any of the skilful things he had prepared.
'She evidently did not want the question seriously opened,' he said, 'so I followed your advice and let it alone, and since then she has been charming both to Agnes and me.