CHAPTER VI. 

THE PRIEST'S CHAMBER. 

I was very glad that Polly had left school and come home for good. It was far more cheerful and pleasant than it had been at all since I left school. Polly made the place so cheerful with her bright happy smile, and was so full of life and fun, that I never found time to sit and muse, and wonder and fret over the future, as I had done before she came home. She never left me long alone for any time, but every day would make me go out for long walks with her, and indeed devoted herself entirely to cheering and amusing me. Papa too very much recovered his spirits under her genial influence; and altogether she made our home much brighter and more cheerful than before. 

So our life went on for nearly three months, and then one Friday evening I was told that Sarah was below waiting to speak to me. I was rather surprised, for she had been to the house very seldom before, and then always on Sunday evenings. 

However, the moment she came in, I saw that she had something very important to tell. Her bright face was quite pale with excitement, and her whole figure was in a nervous tremble. 

"Oh, miss," she burst out directly the door was closed behind her, "Oh, miss, I have found the secret door!" 

Although I had tried all along to hope that she would some day do so, that hope had been so long deferred that it had almost died away; and now at the sudden news, I felt all the blood rush to my heart, the room swam round with me, and I sat on a chair quite overwhelmed by the sudden shock. 
Was she planning on going back?
I was very glad that Polly had left school and come home for good. 