we shall see you sometimes up in London?" he said, as he
stood by the door of the carriage.

"I don't know that there will be much to bring me up," she answered.

"And there won't be much to keep you down in the country," said he.
"You don't know anybody at Littlebath, I believe?"

"The truth is, Tom, that I don't know anybody anywhere. I'm likely to
know as many people at Littlebath as I should in London. But situated
as I am, I must live pretty much to myself wherever I am."

Then the guard came bustling along the platform, the father kissed
his daughter for the last time, and kissed his sister also, and our
heroine with her young charge had taken her departure, and commenced
her career in the world.

For many a mile not a word was spoken between Miss Mackenzie and her
niece. The mind of the elder of the two travellers was very full of
thought,--of thought and of feeling too, so that she could not bring
herself to speak joyously to the young girl. She had her doubts as to
the wisdom of what she was doing. Her whole life, hitherto, had been
sad, sombre, and, we may almost say, silent. Things had so gone with
her that she had had no power of action on her own behalf. Neither
with her father, nor with her brother, though both had been invalids,
had anything of the management of affairs fallen into her hands. Not
even in the hiring or discharging of a cookmaid had she possessed
any influence. No power of the purse had been with her--none of
that power which belongs legitimately to a wife because a wife is a
partner in the business. The two sick men whom she had nursed had
liked to retain in their own hands the little privileges which their
position had given them. Margaret, therefore, had been a nurse in
their houses, and nothing more than a nurse. Had this gone on for
another ten years she would have lived down the ambition of any more
exciting career, and would have been satisfied, had she then come
into the possession of the money which was now hers, to have ended
her days nursing herself--or more probably, as she was by nature
unselfish, she would have lived down her pride as well as her
ambition, and would have gone to the house of her brother and have
expended herself in nursing her nephews and nieces. But luckily for
her--or unluckily, as it may be--this money had come to her before
her time for withering had arrived. In heart, and energy, and desire,
there was still much of strength left to her. Indeed it may