cisely for this reason
that a liberal education and a full mind are even more essential to the
welfare of a woman than they are to the welfare of a man. The world has
left its women, with this irresistible craving in their hearts,
dependent, solitary, exposed to attack, and unarmed for defence; and as
a punishment it has been stung almost to death by the scorpions which
its cruelty generates. But a woman who has been thoroughly educated, a
woman of strong mind and gentle heart, is not dependent for happiness on
the caprice of others, or on the abandonment of half the privileges of
her sex, but draws from an inexhaustible well to which she has constant
access.

So Lettice, with the passions of her kind, and the cravings of her sex,
had been as happy as the chequered circumstances of her outer life would
permit; but now for the first time her peace of mind was disturbed, and
she felt the heaving of the awakened sea beneath.

Why had her heart grown cold when she heard that Alan Walcott's wife was
still alive? Why had her thought been so bitter when she told herself
that she had no right to give the man her sympathy? Why had the light
and warmth and color of life departed as soon as she knew that the woman
whom he had married, however unworthy she might be, was the only one who
could claim his fidelity? Alas, the answer to her questions was only too
apparent. The pain which it cost her to awake from her brief summer's
dream was her first admonition that she had dreamed at all. Not until
she had lost the right to rejoice in his admiration and respond to his
love, did she comprehend how much these things meant to her, and how far
they had been allowed to go.

The anguish of a first love which cannot be cherished or requited is
infinitely more grievous when a woman is approaching the age of thirty
than it is at seventeen or twenty. The recoil is greater and the
elasticity is less. But if Lettice suffered severely from the sudden
blow which had fallen upon her, she still had the consolation of knowing
that she could suffer in private, and that she had not betrayed the
weakness of her heart--least of all to him who had tried to make her
weak.

In the course of the evening she sat down and wrote to him--partly
because he had asked her to write, and partly in order that she might
say without delay what seemed necessary to be said.

"DEAR MR. WALCOTT,--After you were gone this morning I thought a
great deal about a