eyes.

"Yes--I could! I could shut my lips up tight and never answer back, and
look interested when I was bored, and go little walks up and down the
terrace, and play cribbage when I wanted to read, and read aloud dull
books when I wanted to read lively ones to myself, and pretend to like
what I really hate and detest."

"Poor lassie! It does sound dull. I'll tell you a secret, though. It
would not be pretence very long, for it is one of the blessed
recompenses in life that if we conquer self, and perform a duty whole-
heartedly and cheerfully, it is distasteful no longer, but becomes more
interesting than we could have believed possible in the old rebellious
days."

"Does it? But I don't think I quite want to be satisfied with that kind
of life," Sylvia said slowly. "I don't wish to seem disrespectful, but
really and truly Aunt Margaret's ideas are terribly narrow and old-
fashioned, and I shouldn't like it a bit if I were like her when I was
old. I have managed pretty well so far, for I had nice friends, and was
always looking forward to the time when I should have my own home, but
don't you understand how different it is now, and how dreary it seems to
settle down to it as a permanency?" She looked up wistfully in Mrs
Nisbet's face, and met a smile of kindest understanding.

"But there is no necessity to grieve over the future, child! At your
age arrangements are rarely `permanent,' and you are concerned only with
the next step. It seems for the moment as if it were the right course
to return to London, so try to look upon the situation from a new
standpoint, and face it bravely. Forget your aunt's shortcomings, and
remember only that she is your father's only remaining relative, the
playmate and companion of his youth, and that you are connected by a
common sorrow and a common loss. Set yourself to brighten her life, and
to fill it with wider interests; forget yourself, in short, and think
about other people. When you have learned that lesson, dear, you will
have solved the great secret of life, and found the key to happiness and
peace of mind."

"Yes," sighed Sylvia faintly. It sounded very sweet and very beautiful,
but, oh, so terribly difficult to accomplish! If it had been a big
thing, on great, heroic sacrifice which she was called upon to make, she
could have braced herself to the effort, and have borne it with courage,
but the little daily pin-pricks, the chafings of temper, the weariness