ittle money.
Sylvie achieved her ambition, and sold two pictures at what she
considered marvellous prices, but she wisely confessed it only to her
husband. They were invited to clubs and soirees; and Mrs. Minor was
extremely affable, though she did blame Fred for allowing Irene to take
such an idiotic step.

Darcy and Maverick indulged in two or three flying trips. Miss McLeod
liked nothing better than to get these young people together, and listen
to the animated conversations, herself as spicy and sharp as any one.
Miss Lothrop was married; and in the slim, fair, blushing girl the old
lady had for companion now, he saw no danger.

So the winter wore away, and the spring came again; and the man who was
counting the days wondered wearily at times what his summer harvest
might be.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE regal woman who stepped from the car to the station-platform at
Yerbury, one balmy day in early June, to be greeted by Fred and Sylvie
Lawrence with the warmest of welcomes, was indescribably different from
the pale, cold, haughty statue that had gone away. There was an
elasticity in her step, a self-reliance in her air, and the peculiar
confidence discipline wisely used inevitably imparts.

Yet there had been no romantic or highly-wrought change in her. She had
not taken up teaching from any heroic motive or the possible benefit to
any one, but simply to protect herself from what she considered the
weakness of her own soul, to get away from a danger she could not fight.
Oh, how she had hated French verbs and exercises! If hers had been a
susceptible musical temperament, she would have gone quite crazy with
the blunders and sentimentalisms of young girls.

After a month of it, she would have welcomed any relief, even the
face-to-face conflict with Darcy. But she could not well run away from
here, and her physical health was perfect: so there was nothing but to
go straight on, and find that circumstances had to govern, that she
could not shut herself up in sullen majesty, or fling off the daily
duties for some wiser and more patient hands to pick up, and restore to
beauty and harmony.

She had a friend, the best and truest that a young woman could have,
perhaps; a woman so admirably adapted to the training of girls, that it
was no marvel she succeeded. Out of the ruins of her life she had built
up another, wise, sweet, and strong. As Irene began to comprehend what
Mrs. Trenholme had suffered and achieved, f