of her anxiety. The
relief came not a moment too soon, for the long strain to which Lettice
had been subjected began to tell upon her and she was sorely in need of
rest. The last three or four years had been a time of almost incessant
worry to her. She had literally had the care of the household on her
shoulders, and it had needed both courage and endurance of no ordinary
kind to enable her to discharge her task without abandoning that inner
and intellectual life which had become so indispensable to her
well-being. The sudden death of her father was a paralyzing blow, but
the care exacted from her by her mother had saved her from the physical
collapse which it might have brought about. Now, when the necessity for
immediate exertion had passed away, the reaction was very great, and it
was fortunate that she had at this crisis the bracing companionship of
James Graham, and Clara's friendly and stimulating acerbities.

Lettice had reached the age of five and twenty without experiencing
either love, or intimate friendship, or intellectual sympathy. She had
had neither of those two things which a woman, and especially an
intellectual woman, constantly craves, and in the absence of which she
cannot be happy. Either of the two may suffice for happiness, both
together would satisfy her completely, but the woman who has not one or
the other is a stranger to content. The nature of a woman requires
either equality of friendship, a free exchange of confidence, trust and
respect--having which, she can put up with a good deal of apparent
coldness and dryness of heart in her friend; or else she wants the
contrasted savor of life, caressing words, demonstrations of tenderness,
amenities and attentions, which keep her heart at rest even if they do
not satisfy her whole nature. If she gets neither of these things the
love or friendship never wakes, or, having been aroused, it dies of
inanition.

So it was with Lettice. The one oasis in the wilderness of her existence
had been the aftermath of love which sprang up between her and her
father in the last few years, when she felt him depending upon her,
confiding and trusting in her, and when she had a voice in the shaping
of his life. But even this love, unsurpassable in its tenderness, was
only as a faint shadow in a thirsty land. Such as it was, she had lost
it, and the place which it had occupied was an aching void.

The one desire left to her at present was to become an absolutely
i