Each one with more than he can bear, and no
one to help him. Oh, if I could, I would help and comfort everyone that
is sad, or sick at heart, or sorry--oh, if I could!"

And she dreamed of all that she would do if she were Susie--rich, and
free from any sort of interference--to help others, less fortunate, to
be happy too. But, since she was the very reverse of rich and free, she
shook off these dreams, and made numbers of good resolutions
instead--resolutions bearing chiefly on her future behaviour towards
Susie. And she would come out of the church filled with the sternest
resolves to be ever afterwards kind and loving to her; and the very
first words Susie uttered would either irritate her into speeches that
made her sorry, or freeze her back into her ordinary state of cold
aloofness.

If Susie had had an idea that Anna was pitying her, and making good
resolutions of which she was the object at afternoon services, and that
in her eyes she had come to be merely a cross which must with heroism be
borne, she probably would have been indignant. Pitying people and being
pitied oneself are two very different things. The first is soothing and
sweet, the second is annoying, or even maddening, according to the
temperament of the patient. Susie, however, never suspected that anyone
could be sorry for her; and when, after a party, before they went to
bed, Anna would put her arms round her and give her a disproportionately
tender kiss, she would show her surprise openly. "Why, what's the
matter?" she would ask. "Another mood, Anna?" For she could not know how
much Anna felt the snubs she had seen her receive. How should she? She
was so used to them that she hardly noticed them herself.

It was when Anna was twenty-five, and much vexed in body by efforts to
be and to do as Susie wished, and in soul by those unanswerable
questions as to the why and wherefore of the aimless, useless existence
she was leading, that the wonderful thing happened that changed her
whole life.

CHAPTER II

There was a German relation of Anna's, her mother's brother, known to
Susie as Uncle Joachim. He had been twice to England; once during his
sister's life, when Anna was little, and Peter was unmarried, and they
were all poor and happy together at Estcourt; and once after Susie's
introduction into the family, just at that period when Anna was
beginning to stiffen and put her hair behind her ears.

Susie knew all about him, having inquire