in his face, and said she had ached to do it every time she saw
him. All those wells of deeper thought that had been so long choked by
the stony hardness of a proudly-borne sorrow seemed suddenly to open,
when she gave herself up to the thought of Harold. She even arrived at
sorrow for the way she had treated her mother; when he had given up his
own hope rather than make her disobedient. She asked Lady Diana's
pardon. She had never done so voluntarily in her whole life. She was
met by tears and humility that softened and humiliated her in her
sorrow more than aught else. Her precious flower-pot was in her window
with its fragrant verbena, and I gave her the crystal cross again,
telling her where I had found it, and she held it a moment and said,
"Some day it will be buried with me. But I must do something to feel
as if I deserved it. You know it comes to me like a token out of the
sea of glass like unto crystal, where they stand that overcome! I
think I'll only wear it at night when I think I have done something, or
conquered a bit of my perverseness with mamma."

A sudden idea came over me. Mr. Benjamin Yolland was in dire want of a
lady as reference to a parish woman for his Hydriots. I had begun, but
had been called away. Miss Woolmer had tried, but was not well enough,
and there was no one else whom he thought capable. I was to stay at
Arked for six weeks more; should I put Viola in the way? It would be
work for him.

She caught at it. Lady Diana bridled a little as she thought of the
two young men who managed the Hydriots, but the doctor's prescription
recurred to her mind, and she consented.

Need I tell you how dear Aunt Viola's soul and spirit have gone forth
with those Hydriot people, how from going once a week to meet the
parish woman at Miss Woolmer's, she soon came to presiding at the
mothers' meetings, to knowing everybody, and giving more and more of
her time, her thoughts, her very self to them and being loved by them
enormously. The spirit, fun, and enterprise that were in her fitted
her, as they began to revive, for dealing with the lads, who were sure
to be devoted to anything so pretty and refined. When she began, the
whisper that she was the love of their hero, gave them a romantic
interest, and though with the younger generation this is only a
tradition, yet "our lady" has won ground of her own, and is still fair
and sweet enough to be looked on by those youths as a sort of flowe