any more shocks, I shall go mad?  I try to look to the future only and to rise superior to my sorrows, and to a certain extent I succeed, but my mind will not always carry the strain put upon it, but falls heavily to earth like a winged bird.  Then it is that, deprived of its higher food, and left to feed upon its own sadness and to brood upon the bare fact of the death of the man I loved—­I sometimes think, as men are not often loved—­that my spirit almost breaks down.  If you can tell me any cure, anything which will bring me comfort, I shall indeed be grateful to you.”

“I think I can, Angela.  If you will no longer devote yourself to study, you have only to look round to find another answer to your question as to what you are to do?  Are there no poor in these parts for you to visit?  Cannot your hands make clothes to cover those who have none?  Is there no sickness that you can nurse, no sorrow that you can comfort?  I know that even in this parish there are many homes where your presence would be as welcome as a sunbeam in winter.  Remember, Angela, that grief can be selfish as well as pleasure.”

“You are right, Mr. Fraser, you always are right; I think I am selfish in my trouble, but it is a fault that I will try to mend.  Indeed, to look at it in that light only, my time is of no benefit to myself, I may as well devote it to others.”

“If you do, your labour will bring its own reward, for in helping others to bear their load you will wonderfully lighten your own.  Nor need you go far to begin.  Why do you not see more of your own father?  You are naturally bound to love him.  Yet it is but rarely that you speak to him.”

“My father! you know he does not like me, my presence is always a source of irritation to him, he cannot even bear me to look at him.”

“Oh, surely that must be your fancy; probably he thinks you do not care about him.  He has always been a strange and wayward man, I know, but you should remember that he has had bitter disappointments in life, and try to soften him and win him to other thoughts.  Do this and you will soon find that he will be glad enough of your company.”

“I will try to do as you say, Mr. Fraser, but I confess I have only small hopes of any success in that direction.  Have you any parish work I can do?”

Nor did the matter end there, as is so often the case where parish work and young ladies are concerned.  Angela set to her charitable duties with a steady determination that made her services very valuable.  She undertook the sole management of a clothing club, in itself a maddening thing to ordinary mortals, and had an eye to the distribution of the parish coals.  Of mothers’ meetings and other cheerful parochial entertainments, she became the life and soul.  Giving up her mathematics and classical reading, she took to knitting babies’ vests and socks instead; indeed, the number of articles which her nimble fingers turned out in a fortnight was a pleasant surprise for the cold toes of the babies.  And, as Mr. Fraser had prophesied, she found that her labour was of a sort which brought a certain reward.