. Her
bright little face had an attraction all of its own, of which she was
quite unconscious, but she was entirely accustomed to stand aside
while strangers noticed and admired her younger sister Lesbia. To do
Gwen justice, though she might lament her own plainness, it never
struck her to be jealous of the others. She was intensely proud of the
family reputation for beauty, and even if she could not include
herself among "the handsome Gascoynes", it certainly gave her a
reflected satisfaction to be aware of the epithet.

"I'm like Daddy," she said sometimes; "nobody ever calls him handsome,
but he's a dear all the same--the dearest dear in the world!"

The Reverend Maurice Gascoyne was curate-in-charge of the church of
St. John the Baptist in the little fishing village of Skelwick Bay, on
the coast of the North Sea. He was rich in the possession of seven
children, but there his luck ended, for his income, as is often the
case, was in exactly inverse ratio to the size of his family.

"The fact is, we're as poor as church mice," said Beatrice one day.
"Indeed, I think we're poorer, because the mouse we saw in church last
Sunday, that scared Winnie so, was very fat and sleek and prosperous
looking, and didn't bear out the old saying at all."

For the last four years, ever since pretty Mrs. Maurice Gascoyne had
gently laid down the burden that had grown too heavy for her,
Beatrice had been the clever, energetic "mother" of the establishment.
She managed the house, and the children, and the one maid, and the
parish, and her father, all included, with a business-like capacity
far in advance of her twenty years. She was a fine-looking girl, tall
and straight-limbed and ample, with blue eyes and dark brows, and a
clear creamy skin, and that air of noble strength about her which the
Greek sculptors gave to their statues of Artemis. Though she did her
best both for home and hamlet, Beatrice often chafed against the
narrowness of her limits. It was a sore point that she had been
obliged to leave school at sixteen, and devote herself to domestic
pursuits, and while not regretting the sacrifice, she often lamented
the two years lopped off her education.

"I'm so behind, I never could go in even for the matric. now," she
sighed sometimes. "If I could have realized my ambition, I'd have
studied for a lady doctor."

Since the profession of medicine was utterly and entirely out of the
question, Beatrice often consoled herself by