done! I am not intimate with her, but I have
many ways of knowing about her. If you could know all that she has done
for her family! She was the eldest daughter, and her mother was a very
delicate, nervous woman, and the charge of the younger children fell to
her when she was quite a girl. Then when her father failed, she opened
a school and the whole family depended on her. She helped her sisters
till they married, and liberally educated her younger brothers, and now
she is bringing up the four children of one of them who died young. Her
father was bedridden for several years before he died, and he lived in
her home, and she watched over him, and cared for him, though she had
her school. And she has prepared many a young girl for a life of
usefulness, who but for her might have been neglected or lost. Half of
the good she has done in this way will never be known on earth. And to
hear women who are not worthy to tie her shoe, passing their patronising
or their disparaging remarks upon her! It incenses me!"

"My dear, I thought you were past being incensed at anything yon shallow
woman can say."

"But she is not the only one. Even Arthur sometimes provokes me.
Because she has by her laborious profession made herself independent, he
jestingly talks about her bank stock, and about her being a good
speculation for some needy old gentleman. And because that beautiful,
soft grey hair of hers will curl about her pale face, it is hinted that
she makes the most of her remaining attractions, and would be nothing
loth. It is despicable."

"But, my dear, it would be no discredit to her if it were proved that
she would marry. She has a young face yet, though her hair is grey, and
she may have many years before her. Why should she not marry?"

"Don't speak of it," said Graeme, with great impatience; "and yet, as
you say, why should she not? But that is not the question. What I
declare is, that her single life has been an honourable and an honoured
one--and a happy one too. Who can doubt it? There is no married woman
of my acquaintance whose life will compare with here. And the high
place she will get in heaven, will be for no work she will do as Mrs
Dale, though she were to marry the Reverend Doctor to-night, but for the
blessed success that God has given her in her work as a single woman."

"I believe you, dear," said Mrs Snow, warmly.

"And she is not the only one I could name," continued Graeme. "She is