dity, in
considering the natural development of Evelyn Mavick, sought refuge
in the physiological problem of the influence of Rodney Henderson, and
declared that something of his New England sturdiness and fundamental
veracity had been imparted to the inheritor of his great fortune.

But the visible interference took the form of Ann McDonald, a Scotch
spinster, to whom was intrusted the care of Evelyn as soon as she was
christened. It was merely a piece of good fortune that brought a person
of the qualifications of Ann McDonald into the family, for it is not to
be supposed that Mrs. Mavick had given any thought to the truth that
the important education of a child begins in its cradle, or that in
selecting a care-taker and companion who should later on be a governess
she was consulting her own desire of freedom from the duties of a
mother. It was enough for her that the applicant for the position had
the highest recommendations, that she was prepossessing in appearance,
and it was soon perceived that the guardian was truthful, faithful,
vigilant, and of an affectionate disposition and an innate refinement.

Ann McDonald was the only daughter of a clergyman of the Scotch Church,
and brought up in the literary atmosphere common in the most cultivated
Edinburgh homes. She had been accurately educated, and always with the
knowledge that her education might be her capital in life. After the
death of her mother, when she was nineteen, she had been her father's
housekeeper, and when in her twenty-fourth year her father relinquished
his life and his salary, she decided, under the advice of influential
friends, to try her fortune in America. And she never doubted that it
was a providential guidance that brought her into intimate relations
with the infant heiress. It seemed probable that a woman so attractive
and so solidly accomplished would not very long remain a governess, but
in fact her career was chosen from the moment she became interested in
the development of the mind and character of the child intrusted to her
care. It is difficult to see how our modern life would go on as well as
it does if there were not in our homes a good many such faithful souls.
It sometimes seems, in this shifting world, that about the best any of
us can do is to prepare some one else for doing something well.

Miss McDonald had a pretty comprehensive knowledge of English literature
and history, and, better perhaps than mere knowledge, a discrimi