o break it to Maud, and in the way you said?"

"If you will.--But I do so wish you would let me know your own thoughts
about this. You have so much claim to be considered. Maud is in reality
yours far more than she is ours. Will it--do you think now it will
really be for our own happiness? Will the explanation you are able to
give be satisfactory to her? What will be her attitude towards us? You
know her character--you understand her."

"If the future could be all as calm as the past year has been," said
Miss Bygrave, "I should have nothing to urge against your wishes."

"And this will contribute to it," exclaimed Enderby. "This would give
Emily the very support she needs."

Miss Bygrave looked into his face, which had a pleading earnestness,
and a deep pity lay in her eyes.

"Let it be so," she said with decision. "I myself have much hope from
Maud's influence. I will write and tell her not to renew her
engagement, and she will be with us at the end of September."

"But you will not tell her anything till she comes?"

"No."

Miss Bygrave lived in all but complete severance from the world. When
Maud Enderby was at school, she felt strongly and painfully the
contrast between her own home life and that of her companions. The girl
withdrew into solitary reading and thinking; grew ever more afraid of
the world; and by degrees sought more of her aunt's confidence, feeling
that here was a soul that had long since attained to the peace which
she was vainly seeking.

But it was with effort that Miss Bygrave brought herself to speak to
another of her form of faith. After that Christmas night when she
addressed Maud for the first time on matters of religion, she had said
no second word; she waited the effect of her teaching, and the girl's
spontaneous recurrence to the subject. There was something in the very
air of the still, chill house favourable to ascetic gravity. A young
girl, living under such circumstances, must either pine away, eating
her own heart, or become a mystic, and find her daily food in religious
meditation.

Only when her niece was seventeen years old did Miss Bygrave speak to
her of worldly affairs. Her own income, she explained, was but just
sufficient for their needs, and would terminate upon her death; had
Maud thought at all of what course she would choose when the time for
decision came? Naturally, only one thing could suggest itself to the
girl's mind, and that was to become a teacher. To be