her,"
Isabel said gently. "But as to her being unfit to fill a high position,
she is only inexperienced and she will learn very quickly. I am willing
to teach her all in my power."

"Aye, learn to despise her mother," commented Mrs. Bathurst, with sudden
bitterness, "after all the trouble I've taken to make her respect me."

"I should never teach her that," Isabel answered quietly. "And I am sure
that she would be quite incapable of learning it. Mrs. Bathurst, do you
really think that worldly position is a thing that greatly matters to
anyone in the long run? I don't."

It was then that a faint, half-grudging admiration awoke in the elder
woman's resentful soul, and she looked at Isabel with the first glimmer
of kindliness. "You're right," she said slowly, "it don't matter to those
who've got it. But to those who haven't--" her eyes glowed red for a
moment--"you don't know how it galls," she said.

And then she flushed dully, realizing that she had made a confidante of
one of the hated breed.

But Isabel's hand was on hers in a moment; her eyes, full of
understanding, looked earnest friendship into hers. "Oh, I know," she
said. "It is the little things that gall us all, until--until some
great--some fundamental--sorrow wrenches our very lives in twain. And
then--and then--one can almost laugh to think one ever cared about them."

Her voice throbbed with feeling. She had lifted the veil for a moment to
salve the other woman's bitterness.

And Mrs. Bathurst realized it, and was touched. "Ah! You've suffered,"
she said.

Isabel bent her head. "But it is over," she said. "I married a man who,
they said, was beneath me. But--God knows--he was above me--in every way.
And then--I lost him." Her voice sank.

Mrs. Bathurst's hand came down with a clumsy movement upon hers. "He
died?" she said.

"Yes." Almost in a whisper Isabel made answer. "For years I would not
face it--would not believe it. He went from me so suddenly--oh, God, so
suddenly--" a tremor of anguish sounded in the low words; but in a moment
she raised her head, and her eyes were shining with a brightness that no
pain could dim. "It is over," she said. "It is quite, quite over. My
night is past and can never come again. I am waiting now for the full
day. And I know that I have not very long to wait. I have not seen
him--no, I have not seen him. But--twice now--I have heard his voice."

"Poor soul! Poor soul!" said Mrs. Bathurst.

It was all the symp