neighborhood of London, and to make all the necessary
arrangements for your remaining there until you are eighteen years
of age. Any written communications in the future are to pass, if you
please, through the hands of the rector of Sandwich. The delicate health
of the new Lady Damian makes it only too likely that the lives of her
husband and herself will be passed, for the most part, in a milder
climate than the climate of England. I am instructed to say this, and to
convey to you Sir Gervase's best wishes."

By the rector's advice, I accepted the position offered to me in this
unpleasantly formal manner--concluding (quite correctly, as I afterward
discovered) that I was indebted to Lady Damian for the arrangement which
personally separated me from my benefactor. Her husband's kindness and
my gratitude, meeting on the neutral ground of Garrum Park, were
objects of conjugal distrust to this lady. Shocking! shocking! I left a
sincerely grateful letter to be forwarded to Sir Gervase; and, escorted
by the steward, I went to school--being then just fourteen years old.

I know I am a fool. Never mind. There is some pride in me, though I am
only a small shopkeeper's daughter. My new life had its trials--my pride
held me up.

For the four years during which I remained at the school, my poor
welfare might be a subject of inquiry to the rector, and sometimes even
the steward--never to Sir Gervase himself. His winters were no doubt
passed abroad; but in the summer time he and Lady Damian were at home
again. Not even for a day or two in the holiday time was there pity
enough felt for my lonely position to ask me to be the guest of the
housekeeper (I expected nothing more) at Garrum Park. But for my pride,
I might have felt it bitterly. My pride said to me, "Do justice to
yourself." I worked so hard, I behaved so well, that the mistress of the
school wrote to Sir Gervase to tell him how thoroughly I had deserved
the kindness that he had shown to me. No answer was received. (Oh, Lady
Damian!) No change varied the monotony of my life--except when one of
my schoolgirl friends sometimes took me home with her for a few days at
vacation time. Never mind. My pride held me up.

As the last half-year of my time at school approached, I began to
consider the serious question of my future life.

Of course, I could have lived on my eighty pounds a year; but what a
lonely, barren existence it promised to be!--unless somebody married me;
and