hings were very familiar to Lilac's ears, and,
though she took her knitting and sat down on her little stool close to
her mother, she did not listen much to what she was saying.

Mrs White, quite ignorant that her words of wisdom were wasted,
continued admonishingly:

"So as you grow up, Lilac, and get to a woman, that's what you've got to
learn--to trust to yourself; you won't always have a mother to look to.
And what you've got to do now is, to learn to do your work jest as well
as you can, and then afterwards you'll be able to stand firm on yer own
two feet, and not go leaning up against other folk, or be beholden to
nobody. That's a good thing, that is. There's a saying, `Heaven helps
them as helps themselves'. If that poor Hepzibah had helped herself
when she was a gal, she wouldn't be such a daundering creetur now, and
Dan'l, he wouldn't be a curse instead of a blessin'."

When Lilac went up to her tiny room in the roof that night, her head
felt too full of confusing thoughts to make it possible to go to bed at
once. She knelt on a box that stood in the window, fastened back the
lattice, and, leaning on the sill, looked out into the night. The
greyness of evening was falling over everything, but it was not nearly
dark yet, so that she could see the windings of the chalky road which
led down to the valley, and the church tower, and even one of the gable
windows in Orchards Farm, where a light was twinkling. Generally this
last object was a most interesting one to her, but to-night she did not
notice outside things much, for her mind was too busy with its own
concerns. She had, for the first time in her life, something quite new
and strange to think of, something of her own which her mother did not
know; and though this may seem a very small matter to people whose lives
are full of events, to Lilac it was of immense importance, for until now
her days had been as even and unvaried as those of any daisy that grows
in a field. But to-morrow, two new things were to happen--she was to
have her hair cut, and to have her picture painted. "A poor sort of
picture," Mrs Greenways had said it would be, and, no doubt, Lilac
agreed in her own mind Agnetta would make a far finer one--Agnetta, who
had red cheeks, and a fringe already, and could dress herself so much
smarter. Would a fringe really improve her? Agnetta said so. And
yet--her mother--was it worth while to risk vexing her? But it would
grow. Yes, but in