"I don't believe there _is_ a 'least.' They are both unbearable. It is a
question which best fits one's temperament, which leads soonest to
resignation."

"Oh, Hadria, you would never achieve resignation!" cried Valeria.

"Oh, some day, perhaps!"

Valeria shook her head. She had no belief in Hadria's powers in that
direction. Hopelessness was her nearest approach to that condition of
cheerful acquiescence which, Hadria had herself said, profound faith or
profound stupidity can perhaps equally inspire.

"At least," said Valeria, "you know that you are useful and helpful to
those around you. You make your mother happy."

"No, my mother is not happy. My work is negative. I just manage to
prevent her dying of grief. One must not be too ambitious in this stern
world. One can't make people happy merely by reducing oneself, morally,
to a jelly. Sometimes, by that means, one can dodge battle and murder
and sudden death."

"It is terrible!" cried Valeria.

"But meanwhile one lays the seed of future calamities, to avoid which
some other future woman will have to become jelly. The process always
reminds me of the old practice of the Anglo-Saxon kings, who used to buy
off the Danes when they threatened invasion, and so pampered the enemy
whom their successors would afterwards have to buy off at a still more
ruinous cost. I am buying off the Danes, Valeria."

CHAPTER XL.

"Do you know it is a year to-day, since we came to this cottage?"
exclaimed Mrs. Fullerton. "How the time flies!"

The remark was made before the party settled to the evening's whist.

"You are looking very much better than you did a month after your
illness, Mrs. Fullerton," said Joseph Fleming, who was to take a hand,
while Hadria played Grieg or Chopin, or Scottish melodies to please the
old people. The whist-players enjoyed music during the game.

"Ah, I shall never be well," said Mrs. Fullerton. "One can't recover
from long worry, Mr. Fleming. Shall we cut for partners?"

It was a quaint, low-pitched little room, filled with familiar furniture
from Dunaghee, which recalled the old place at every turn. The game went
on in silence. The cards were dealt, taken up, shuffled, sorted, played,
massed together, cut, dealt, sorted, and so on, round and round; four
grave faces deeply engrossed in the process, while the little room was
filled with music.

Mrs. Fullerton had begun to feel slightly uneasy about her daughter. "So
much nursing has