f looking to you and feeling to you
as our best and dearest friend?'

And she threw her arms round the old lady as Francie might have done,
and was not repulsed.

'You will let me have Jacinth sometimes?' whispered Lady Myrtle.

'Of course, of course; whenever you like and as much as you like,' said
Mrs Mildmay eagerly.

'I will not be unreasonable,' the old lady said with one of the
half-wistful smiles that were so touching. 'Even if--if everything had
been going to be as I hoped, I would never have wished or expected
anything which could have interfered with her home ties and duties. And
I need scarcely say I will never come upon this subject that we have
been discussing, with her. I will leave it entirely to you, her parents,
to tell her what you think right, though I own I should like her to
realise how I have been thinking of her.'

[Illustration: 'Ah well!' said Lady Myrtle, 'another dream vanished!']

'That she certainly shall,' exclaimed Mrs Mildmay impulsively. And
though a moment afterwards she was tempted to murmur to herself 'at all
costs,' she did not repent of her promise. 'It would not be fair to Lady
Myrtle for Jacinth to be told nothing,' she reflected. 'And scarcely
indeed fair to the child herself. For I cannot but believe she will see
it all as we do.'

So that afternoon Colonel Mildmay wrote to accept the appointment
offered him up at gloomy, smoky Barmettle in the dreary north country.

'I doubt if we have done much to forward the poor Harpers' cause,' said
his wife as she watched him closing and sealing the big blue official
envelope.

'Very possibly not,' he replied calmly. 'But we have, I hope and
believe, done _right_. And so we must not feel over much concern for the
poor Harpers' future any more than for that of our own children, my dear
Eugenia.'

And though Mrs Mildmay agreed with him, she was human enough, and woman
enough, to sigh a little at certain visions of what might have been,
which _would_ intrude themselves!

'But what,' she began again after a little pause, 'what are we to say to
Jacinth?'

It is to be confessed that Colonel Mildmay's reply was not quite so
ready this time.

'We must consider well about that,' he said. 'Of course we must tell her
soon about Barmettle. It would not be treating her fairly, for she is a
remarkably sensible girl, and has behaved excellently in rather
difficult circumstances. Alison's little house and odd ways must have
been somewhat