direction.

Margaret had been her desire previously, when her inheritance was only problematical. Imagine what her wishes were now when every one knew that Margaret was a very rich widow.

She endeavoured to meet Grace with a friendliness that committed her to nothing, and her talk was of Margaret, and ever Margaret. Was she getting over the sad, she might say the mysterious, death of the child?

"There was nothing very mysterious about it. It died of suppressed scarlet fever, poor little thing. I never saw it. No, Margaret is not getting over it. She never smiles, and at night she cries often. Lady Lyons, I do wish she would get over it; I do find it so terribly dull."

"I dare say," said Lady Lyons, without any show of sympathy.

"Day after day not a soul, save and except the doctor, and he is always in too great a hurry to be pleasant," and Grace gave a long sigh. "When I heard your name it was such a godsend. Do you know I positively have not spoken to a soul for days and days, except Margaret and that old Scotchwoman, who is stark staring mad on religious subjects."

"But you have the comfort of being with your sister," said Lady Lyons, a little stiffly.

"She does not want me in the very least," said Grace, eagerly, a plan developing itself quite suddenly in her fertile brain; "not in the very least. No, Lady Lyons, what I mean to do is——How long must I wear this?" she said, suddenly touching the crape on her dress.

"Oh, Miss Rivers! You being Scotch makes such a difference; in England mourning is less and less worn as it used to be, and now people take to kilting crape it takes away from the blackness of it somehow. In Scotland you would have to wear it months and months, and as you are Scotch——"

"I am only Scotch on one side of my house," exclaimed Grace, "and I do not intend to shut myself up for months and months. No, Lady Lyons, I have a plan, but I do not see much use in telling it to you, if you think I am going to dress like a mute at a funeral."

"I am sure I do not wish to hear your plan," said Lady Lyons, irritated by Grace's manner and by her words, "I came to call upon your sister; will you be so good as to say that sincere sorrow for her made me lay aside my invalid habits and come out."

"Please don't go," said Grace, "and for goodness sake don't talk about being an invalid. I have not a lung left, so they say, or only a little bit of one, and I will not be ill or anything. Now I will tell you what I mean to do. I mean to go to London, and pay a good deal of money to some great lady, and go about with her as soon as I decently can."

"My dear Miss Rivers, no very great lady would care to do this; they want nothing you can give them."

"Well then a smaller one must do," said Grace calmly; "but she must know everybody, heaps of people and all that—she must be in the swim you know."

"But I do not know," said Lady Lyons. "In the swim! What do you mean? I have not the faintest idea."

"Oh, Paul will know."

(It had already come to this: she called him Paul! Lady Lyons was extremely displeased.)

"My son, whom you call 'Paul,'" she said, stiffly, "what can he do? He is but young."

"Oh, he knows the world a little though he is young; of course I call him Paul."

"He does know the world," said the irritated mother, "I hope he knows the world too well to be a victim to any one who is not ... in a position I should like."

"You are quite wrong, dear Lady Lyons; being a man of the world, and knowing the world a little, are two very different things, and no one can call Paul a man, he is so very young; that was what I said to him only the other day. And about a position you would like, you mean your son must marry for money. Now, I have too good an opinion of Paul to believe it—and no one worth his salt will choose only to please his mother."

"I am so unaccustomed to hear such ... unfeminine sentiments," and the irate Lady Lyons rose to go.

"It is very good for every one to hear several sides to any question," said Grace, rising also; "I hope I have not offended you, Lady Lyons; but you know I am one of the people who never can help speaking the truth upon all occasions—more especially when it suits me," she added to herself.

"You have not offended me at all," answered Lady Lyons, very much ruffled; "the opinion of a young lady who does not know the world has not so much weight as you think."

"Now, you want to be disagreeable," said Grace, laughing, "and you need not try. When I was in a scrape at school, which was very seldom, the good people did not know what to do, because scolding I never minded a bit, and hard sayings never hit me, so you see I am a hopeless character—but for Margaret, perhaps, no one would ever speak to me. She is very different."

"Yes, she is very different. I think she must be curiously different. Do you never vex her, Miss Rivers? Have you never wounded her sensibilities?"

The quick colour, even tears, came suddenly into Grace's usually tearless eyes. She tried hard to hide them, but Lady Lyons saw them, and they melted her a little. "Ah!" she said, "Yes. Well, a sincere and warm affection for your sister may bring out your good qualities."

"Thank you," said Grace, demurely, rapidly regaining her usual spirits. And when Lady Lyons went away she carried with her a most confused impression of the girl who had made fun of her at one moment and shown very bad taste in talking about Paul with so much familiarity, and the next betrayed very deep feeling for her sister.

Lady Lyons was one of the many people in the world who forget that, though the influence of civilization has a levelling effect, underneath are many varieties of character, and that the most ordinary is a complex one, not wholly good or wholly bad, but partaking of both.

In a different way there was another person who had at first given fullest sympathy to Margaret's desolation, and yet who also now felt that she was becoming morbid in her grief, and who wished to see her rousing herself from it.

This was Jean.

With all the depth of a nature both intense and passionate she had felt the death of the little child for her, as she had felt all the horrors she had gone through.

But now she saw that Margaret was nursing and indulging her sorrow, and she was anxious to wean her from its perpetual contemplation, conscious, through the fine natural instinct that belonged to her, that if the habit of solitude, of mourning, and of shrinking from all companionship, was once formed, it would be far more difficult to break through it afterwards.

The visits to the little grave, where each flower was laid and watered with tears, must be used to turn her thoughts to living children in great need of a share of her sympathy and of her help.

With her Bible in her hand, and a hearty prayer in her heart, the faithful old woman accompanied Margaret, as she had often done before, to the little corner, where the poor young mother wept and meditated, recalling every broken lisping word, so dear to her, and losing herself in fond remembrance of her lost darling.

"My bairn," said Jean, when the fresh flowers had been laid down, and Margaret stood like a frail shadow in her long black robes, "have you ever thought how much money you have now in your hands to spend?"

"Oh! do not speak of it here," said Margaret, shocked and distressed.

"Why should I not speak of it here?" said Jean, stoutly; "it is here that I want to show you that you should do something with it."

"I shall never claim it, never spend it!" exclaimed Margaret, twining her thin white fingers round the little marble cross close to her.

"But you must do both," said Jean, emphatically. "You must claim the money, and spend the money. You must spend it, my dear, for the glory of God, and to give help."

"How? Tell me how can I?"

"You never can, if you do not look further than to a few feet of green turf, and allow nothing