nt gesture which had grown habitual in years of struggle.
This was the direction in which thought could not be allowed to turn,
the direction of earthquake and upheaval; the death of peace. Even as
the pain cramped her heart she had decided on her medicine. "I will go
to see my baby! There is still half an hour before her bedtime."

Little Vanna, Jean's youngest daughter, had been brought up by her
parents to consider herself as equally the child of themselves and
"Mother Wanna" and had shown herself delightfully eager to avail herself
of the privilege.

"You've gotten only one mummie; I'se two!" was one of the earliest
boasts by which she endeavoured to demonstrate her superiority over her
sisters. She was a delightful little person, pretty, as were all Jean's
children, with her mother's dark, cloud-like hair, and her father's
hazel eyes; affectionate, strong-willed, and already, at five years old,
amusingly conscious of the powers of a dimpled cheek and a beguiling
lisp, to gain for her the ambition of the minute. Jean had faithfully
kept her promise of allowing her friend to adopt the small Vanna
financially as well as mentally; and if it was a delightful task to
purchase her small garments, it was still more thrilling to plan for
years ahead. Little Vanna must have an education to fit her for her
place in life. Her talents from the beginning should receive the most
skilful training; she should be taken abroad to learn languages in the
only way in which they can be truly mastered; if her attainments
justified she should go on to College; if she preferred a social life,
she should enjoy it to the full. Privately Vanna cherished the hope
that her fledgling might develop not into a grave student but into a
natural, light-hearted girl, whose happiness might atone to her in some
wise for her own blighted youth. All that love, and money, and the most
careful forethought could do, should be done to secure for the second
Vanna an unclouded girlhood. In imagination she pictured her in the
various stages of growth; the schoolgirl coming home from school, to be
taken for holiday trips abroad; the gayest, least responsible of
companions, running short of pocket-money, mislaying her effects, full
of wild, impractical plans; later on the debutante, a tall, dim maiden,
reviving memories of her lovely mother at the same age, attiring herself
in a filmy white gown, peeping with sparkling eyes inside a jeweller's
case, show