f golden light
across the sands, the sight of those two light-stepping figures in the
distance. She would help Jean, help others, who were in need. There
was no lack of work in the world for hands which were willing and free.
She could make other people happy; could live a noble, selfless life.
Even so, and at the thought, the lips of three-and-twenty quivered, and
the salt tears flowed. She wanted to be happy herself--longed to be
happy. The selfless life sounded barren and cold; it roused no flicker
of joy. "How shall I bear it?" asked Vanna of herself. "How can I
live, looking on, always looking on, having no part? Even to-day with
Jean--my darling Jean--and that strange man, I felt sore and angry
and--_bad_! He thought me a cross, ungracious girl. His opinion does
not matter, but other people will think so too if I behave in the same
way; and that would be terrible. I could not exist if people did not
care for me. In self-defence I must overcome. But how to do it?"

Vanna leant her head on her hands and sent up a wordless prayer. In her
own fashion she was deeply religious, but it was not the fashion of her
day. Her aunt had been shocked and distressed by her heterodox
sentiments, and had spent many hours in prayer for her niece's
conversion, while Vanna, in her turn, had been fully as shocked at the
old woman's conventional ideas.

Aunt Mary had been the most tender and forgiving of mortals. Her
memory, tenacious till death of the smallest kindness shown towards her,
was absolutely incapable of retaining an injury. If any one offended,
her own anxiety was to find for them a means of reform; to her charity
there seemed literally no end.

When a trusted servant repaid endless kindnesses by a flagrant theft,
Aunt Mary was bowed down with penitence for occasional carelessness on
her own part which might possibly have led the sinner into temptation.
"I remember distinctly one Sunday night when I left my purse in the
dining-room, and was too lazy to go downstairs to fetch it, and at other
times I have left change lying about. It was wrong of me--terribly
wrong. One never knows what need there may be--what _pressing_ need--
and to see the money lying there before her eyes!"

To the scandal of the neighbourhood, instead of giving the offender in
charge, or at least dismissing her in shame and ignominy, Aunt Mary
tearfully apologised for her own share in the crime, and proposed a
future partnership in