't
think I should be surprised at anything you do. Do you know who was in
the hall when I came in this afternoon?"

"No," said Sheila.

"Why that wretched old hag who keeps the fruit-stall. And it seems you
gave her and all her family tea and cake in the kitchen last night."

"She is a poor old woman," said Sheila humbly.

"A poor old woman!" he said impatiently. "I have no doubt she is a
lying old thief, who would take an umbrella or a coat if only she
could get the chance. It is really too bad, Sheila, your having all
those persons about you, and demeaning yourself by amending on them.
What must the servants think of you?"

"I do not heed what any servants think of me," she said.

She was now standing erect, with her face quite calm.

"Apparently not," he said, "or you would not go and make yourself
ridiculous before them."

Sheila hesitated for a moment, as if she did not understand; and then
she said, as calmly as before, but with a touch of indignation about
the proud and beautiful lips, "And if I make myself ridiculous by
attending to poor people, it is not my husband who should tell me so."

She turned and walked out, and he was too surprised to follow her. She
went up stairs to her own room, locked herself in and threw herself on
the bed. And then all the bitterness of her heart rose up as if in a
flood--not against him, but against the country in which he lived, and
the society which had contaminated him, and the ways and habits that
seemed to create a barrier between herself and him, so that she was
a stranger to him, and incapable of becoming anything else. It was a
crime that she should interest herself in the unfortunate creatures
round about her--that she should talk to them as if they were human
beings like herself, and have a great sympathy with their small hopes
and aims; but she would not have been led into such a crime if she
had cultivated from her infancy upward a consistent self-indulgence,
making herself the centre of a world of mean desires and petty
gratifications. And then she thought of the old and beautiful days up
in the Lewis, where the young English stranger seemed to approve of
her simple ways and her charitable work, and where she was taught to
believe that in order to please him she had only to continue to be
what she was then. There was no great gulf of time between that period
and this; but what had not happened in the interval? She had not
changed--at least she hoped she h