guides, or that her
duty lay here, and then nothing would show her that her mother's
health was failing. Indeed, by that time the sort of blindness had
come upon her which really broke your mother's heart.

L. You mean her unbelief, agnosticism, or whatever she chooses to
call it. I thought at least women were safe from that style of
thing. It is all fashion and bad company, I suppose?

MRS. H. I hope and pray that it may be so; but I am afraid that it
goes deeper than you imagine. Still, I see hope in her extreme
unhappiness, and in the remembrance of your dear mother's last words
and prayers.

XI. GRANDFATHER AND GRAND-DAUGHTER

A MONTH LATER. MR. AVELAND AND CECILIA.

MR. A. My dear child, I wish I could do anything for you.

C. You had better let me go back to London, grandpapa.

MR. A. Do you really wish it?

C. I don't know. I hate it all; but if I were in the midst of
everything again, it might stifle the pain a little.

MR. A. I am afraid that is not the right way of curing it.

C. Oh, I suppose it will wear down in time.

MR. A. Is that well?

C. I don't know. It is only unbearable as it is; and yet when I
think of my life in town, the din and the chatter and the bustle,
and the nobody caring, seem doubly intolerable; but I shall work off
that. You had better let me go, grandpapa. The sight of me can be
nothing but a grief and pain to you.

MR. A. No; it gives me hope.

C. Hope of what?

MR. A. That away from the whirl you will find your way to peace.

C. I don't see how. Quiet only makes me more miserable.

MR. A. My poor child, if you can speak out and tell me exactly how
it is with you, I think it might be comfortable to you. If it is
the missing your mother, and blaming yourself for having allowed her
to overdo herself, I may well share with you in that. I feel most
grievously that I never perceived how much she was undertaking, nor
how she flagged under it. Unselfish people want others to think for
them, and I did not.

C. Dear grandpapa, it would not have been too much if I had come
and helped. I know that; but it is not the worst. You can't feel
as I do--that if my desertion led to her overworking herself, Aunt
Phrasie and Lucius say that what really broke her down was the
opinions I cannot help having. Say it was not, grandpapa.

MR. A. I wish I could, my dear; but I cannot conceal that
unhappiness about you, and regret for having let you e