ort. Through streaming tears she looked at the closely written pages
of instructions, so minute that she could not err--and he had disliked
writing so much! This was the weary task which had tried him so! And all
these years she had never known. She had been robbed of her birthright!

Fierce and long the battle raged. When it was ended God heard his child
cry softly, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us."

She had forgiven!

CHAPTER XXXI.

Mrs. Simpson Kennard was sitting in her pretty morning room with her
baby on her knee. She looked across the room at her sister who was
paying her a visit. "I wish you had a little child to love, Isabelle. It
makes life so different. I am just wrapped up in Florimel."

"For pity's sake, Marion," cried Isabelle peevishly, "don't you grow to
be one of those tiresome women who think the whole world is interested
in a baby's tooth! I certainly do not echo your wish. I think children
are a nuisance."

Marion caught up her baby in dismay. "Why, Isabelle, just think how much
they do for us! They broaden our sympathies--I read that only the other
day, and----"

"Broaden your fiddlesticks!" said Isabelle contemptuously. "Easy for you
to talk when you have everything you want! If you had to live in that
poky little house in Marlborough, I guess you would not find anything
very broadening about them!

"It is perfectly preposterous to think of our being reduced to such a
style of living!" she continued, as Mrs. Kennard strove to soothe her
baby's injured feelings with kisses. "Just fancy, only one servant! I
never thought a Hildreth would fall so low."

"But you and Mamma are comfortable, Isabelle. It is not as if you were
forced to do anything."

"Do anything!" echoed Isabelle. "Are you going crazy?"

"Well, see how hard Evadne has to work? and she is a Hildreth as well as
you."

"Evadne!" said Isabelle sarcastically, "with her nerves of steel and
spine of adamant! Evadne will never kill herself with work. She is too
much taken up with her wealthy private patients. You should have seen
her driving round with the Hawthornes in their elegant carriage And I
reduced to dependence upon the electric cars! I don't see how she
manages to worm her way into people's confidence as she seems to do. I
couldn't, but then I have such a horror of being forward."

"'All doors are open to those who smile.' I believe that is the reason,
Isabelle."

"Stuff