do as
your aunt and uncle in their kindness wish, would, I am sore afraid, end
in depriving you of the inner strength and happiness which God only gives
to those who do their duty and try courageously to repair their errors.
I have confidence in you, my dear child. "Ever your most loving father,
"EDWARD PIERSON."

She read it through a second time, and looked at her baby. Daddy seemed
to think that she might be willing to part from this wonderful creature!
Sunlight fell through the plum blossom, in an extra patchwork quilt over
the bundle lying there, touched the baby's nose and mouth, so that he
sneezed. Noel laughed, and put her lips close to his face. 'Give you
up!' she thought: 'Oh, no! And I'm going to be happy too. They shan't
stop me:

In answer to the letter she said simply that she was coming up; and a
week later she went, to the dismay of her uncle and aunt. The old nurse
went too. Everything had hitherto been so carefully watched and guarded
against by Thirza, that Noel did not really come face to face with her
position till she reached home.

Gratian, who had managed to get transferred to a London Hospital, was now
living at home. She had provided the house with new maids against her
sister's return; and though Noel was relieved not to meet her old
familiars, she encountered with difficulty the stolid curiosity of new
faces. That morning before she left Kestrel, her aunt had come into her
room while she was dressing, taken her left hand and slipped a little
gold band on to its third finger. "To please me, Nollie, now that you're
going, just for the foolish, who know nothing about you."

Noel had suffered it with the thought: 'It's all very silly!' But now,
when the new maid was pouring out her hot water, she was suddenly aware
of the girl's round blue eyes wandering, as it were, mechanically to her
hand. This little hoop of gold, then, had an awful power! A rush of
disgust came over her. All life seemed suddenly a thing of forms and
sham. Everybody then would look at that little ring; and she was a
coward, saving herself from them! When she was alone again, she slipped
it off, and laid it on the washstand, where the sunlight fell. Only this
little shining band of metal, this little yellow ring, stood between her
and the world's hostile scorn! Her lips trembled. She took up the ring,
and went to the open window; to throw it out. But she did not, uncertain
and unhappy--half realising th