It was difficult, too, for one who had lived a free, careless life, to
have to do everything by rule, and submit to restraint in even the
smallest matters.

In spite of her efforts to be cheerful and to keep from all complaining,
Edith grew paler and thinner, and so quiet, that Aunt Rachel was quite
pleased with what she called her niece's "becoming demeanour."

The girl was growing fast; she was undoubtedly learning much that was
useful and good, but no one knew what it cost her to go quietly on from
day to day and never send one passionate word to the distant home,
imploring her father to let her return to the beloved circle again.

[Sidenote: A Welcome Letter]

But the six months, though they had seemed such a long time to look
forward to, flew quickly by when there were so many things to be done
and learned in them. Edith began to wonder very much in the last few
weeks whether she had really been able to please her aunt or not.

It was not Miss Harley's way to praise or commend her niece at all.
Young people required setting down and keeping in their proper places,
she thought, rather than having their vanity flattered. Yet she could
not be blind to Edith's honest and earnest efforts to please and to
learn, and at the end of the six months a letter went to Winchcomb,
which made both Dr. and Mrs. Harley proud of their child.

"Edith has her faults, as all girls have," wrote Miss Rachel; "but I may
tell you that ever since she came I have been pleased with her conduct.
She makes the best use of the advantages I am able to give her, and I
think you will find her much improved both in knowledge and deportment.
You had better have her home for a week or two, to see you and her
brothers and sisters, and then she can return, and consider my house her
home always. I make no doubt that you will be glad to yield her to me
permanently, but be good enough not to tell her how much I have said in
her favour. I don't want the child's head turned."

"It is very kind of Rachel," said Mrs. Harley, after reading this letter
for the third or fourth time. "I must say I never expected Edith to get
to the end of her six months, still less that she should gain so much
approval. She was always such a wild, harem-scarem girl at home."

"She only wanted looking after, my dear, and putting in a right way,"
said the doctor, in a true masculine spirit; and Mrs. Harley answered,
with her usual gentle little sigh:

"I don't think that was