ought to have done for the welfare of his
family."

The vicar declined Mr. Lovegrove's
proffered hospitality, and went back to his
dingy hotel chamber to read Clara's letter
in solitude.

The letter was short and simple. It
appealed to him, on the ground of old
friendship, not to decline the trust imposed
on him.

"My husband's relatives," thus it ran,
"have long been estranged from us. Papa
and poor James are dead, and distant
cousins who know little and care less about
me or mine, possess my old home. My
sister, Lady Tallis, is childless, and she
would gladly adopt my little one, and
would, I well know, be tender and kind to
the orphan. But her unhappy domestic
circumstances render this impossible. Neither,
to say truth, is Hilda's husband a man
beneath whose roof I should like my daughter
to be brought up, even were he willing
to permit it. Hilda has her own troubles.
I mention these things, not in any spirit
of bitterness, but simply that you may
understand how utterly friendless my Maud
will be when I am gone: for I know her
helplessness will appeal strongly to your
kind heart."

The letter was common-place and prosaic
enough in form and expression: but to
Charles Levincourt, sitting there with the
sheet of folded paper in his hand, and thinking
of the dead woman whom he once loved
so well, there was both pathos and
eloquence in the sharply written characters.
He mused long and sadly on the events of
the past years that had so strangely resulted
in giving Clara's only surviving child to
his care. But whatsoever reflections or
regrets these musings awakened in his
mind he imparted to no one.

The next day the vicar returned to
Shipley, bringing with him a new inmate
to the vicarage house. The little orphan
was kindly received by the mistress of her
new home. Mrs. Levincourt was an
Italian by birth. Her mother had been
an Englishwoman, her father a Neapolitan.
She had lived abroad all her life
until her marriage; was very uneducated,
very frivolous, and very beautiful. She
had perhaps as small a share of imagination
as ever fell to the lot of a human being.
The self-confidence arising from this total
inability to conceive another person's point
of view, to imagine, in short, how others
might feel or think, was a power which
carried her triumphantly over many
difficulties. She would reply to an argument
or a remonstrance, by some irrelevant
platitude which made her husband tingle
with shame, but which, to her apprehension,
was entirely convincing. On the
whole, however, she did her duty well (as
far as she understood it) by the little stray
lamb brought into her fold. Gentle, it
was not in Stella Levincourt's nature to
be, but she was kind and attentive to the
child's bodily requirements. Mrs.
Levincourt's first impression of the little girl, she
confided to her husband on the night of
his return from London.

"I have put her to bed in a crib in
Veronica's room, Charles. She is a quiet
docile child, enough. But, oh, caro mio,
what a stolid little thing! Just lost her
mother, and as cool and as calm as
possible!"

The vicar remembered the child's quivering
lip, pale cheek, and anxious yearning
look into the strange faces that had
surrounded her; and he made answer, "Maud
is quiet, but I think not stolid, my dear."

"She is English, English, English to the
bone!" retorted Mrs. Levincourt, shrugging
her graceful shoulders. "Only figure to
yourself if I were to die! Veronica——–;
but then our darling is so sensitive!"

In Charles Levincourt's mind there arose
a vision of a sweet, pale, girlish face, which
he had last seen gazing after the coach
that carried him away from Delaney Park
for ever. And the vision, from some
unexplained cause, stung him into the utterance
of a sarcastic speech. He had long ago
ceased to use sarcasm or irony habitually,
in talking with his wife.

"I have no doubt, my dear," said he,
"that if Veronica were suffering in mind
or body she would take care that every one
around her should suffer too."

"That she would, poverina!" exclaimed
Stella, energetically.

When little Maud Desmond came to live
at the vicarage she was nine years old, and
Veronica, the vicar's only child, was eleven.
After a short time the two little girls were
sent to school at Danecester. Veronica
had hitherto refused to go from home, and
her refusal had sufficed to prevent her going.
Her mother indulged her and worshipped
her with a blind devotion, which was repaid
(as such devotion often is) by a mingling
of fondness, disdain, and tyranny.

But now that Maud was to go to school,
Veronica declared that she would accompany
her; and she did so. And between
their home and the quiet Danecester school