therless girl, brought up in a lonely
Scotch house in a very haphazard way. My dear father loved me tenderly,
but he was away from home for the greater part of the year; and he
understood little of a girl's nature or a girl's requirements. When I
was sixteen he allowed me to dismiss my governess, and to live as I
liked. I was romantic and dreamy; I spent a great deal of time in the
library, and he thought that there at least I was safe. He would have
been more careful of me, as he said afterwards, if I had wanted to roam
over the moors and fields, to fish or shoot as many modern women do. I
can only say that I think I should have been far safer on the hillside
or the moor than I was in the lonely recesses of that library, pouring
over musty volumes of chivalry and romance.

"My only change was a few weeks in London with friends, during the
season. Here, young as I was, I was thrown into a whirl of gaiety; but
the society that I met was of the best sort, and I welcomed it as a
pleasant relaxation. I saw the pleasant side of everything. You see I
was very young. I went to the most charming parties; I was well
introduced: I think I may say that I was admired. My first season was
almost the happiest--certainly the most joyous--period of my life. But
it was still a time of unreality, Lesley: the glitter and glamour of
that glimpse of London society was as unreal as my dreams of love and
beauty and nobleness in the old library at home. I lacked a mother's
guiding hand, my child, and a mother's tender voice to tell me what was
false and what was true."

Involuntarily Lesley drew closer than ever to her mother.

The ring of pain in Lady Alice's voice saddened and even affrighted her.
It suggested a passionate yearning, an anxiety of love, which almost
overwhelmed her. It is always alarming to a young and simple nature to
be brought suddenly into contact with a very strong emotion, either of
anguish, love, or joy.

"I suffered for my loss," Lady Alice went on, after a short pause. "But
at first without knowing that I suffered. There comes a time in every
woman's life, Lesley, when she is in need of help and counsel, when, in
fact, she is in danger. As soon as a woman loves, she stands on the
brink of a precipice."

"I thought," murmured Lesley, "that love was the most beautiful thing in
the world?"

"Is that what the nuns have taught you?" asked her mother, with a keen
glance at the girl's flushing cheek. "Well, in one se