ter her late
dinner, and disinclined to do anything more, except sit in front of the
blazing fire in her own little room and dream. Outside, the frost
continued sharper than ever, and faintly there came to her ear the
sounds of the distant bells practising for the coming festival, and once
more for the second time that day her thoughts flew backwards over the
mist of years.

She was a lonely old woman, she told herself; and so she was, as far as
relatives went, but miserable she was not. She was as bright and sunny
as many of us, and a great deal more so than some. Her life had had its
ups and downs, its bright and dark hours; but she had learnt to dwell on
the former and put the latter in the background, hiding them under the
mercies she had received; and so she became to be known in Stourton as
"sunny Miss Martyn," and no name could have been more applicable.

And as the flames roared up the chimney this winter night, she thought
of the young hearts that had left her that morning and of their
happiness that first night at home. She had known what that was herself.
She had been a schoolgirl once--a schoolgirl in this very house, and had
left it as they had left it that morning to return to a loving home. Her
father had been well off in those days; she was his only child, and all
he had to care for, her mother dying at her birth. They had been all in
all to each other, and the days of her girlhood were the brightest of
her life.

He missed his "little sunbeam," as he called her, when she was away at
Seaton Lodge--for it was called Seaton Lodge even then; but they made up
for the separation when the holidays came and they were together once
more, and more especially at Christmas-time, that season of parties and
festivities. Mr. Martyn was a hospitable man, and his entertainments
were many, and his neighbours and friends were not slow in returning
his kindnesses; so that Christmas-time was a dream of excitement and
delight as far as Selina was concerned.

[Sidenote: A Bank Failure]

But a break came to those happy times: a joint stock bank, in which Mr.
Martyn had invested, failed, and he was ruined. The shock was more than
his somewhat weak heart could stand, and it killed him.

His daughter was just sixteen at the time, and the head pupil at Seaton
Lodge. She was going to leave at the end of the half-year; but now all
was changed. Instead of returning home to be mistress of her father's
house, she would have to w