‘But my letter, Uncle Max!’

’Ah, true, your letter; but I have not forgotten it.  How old are you, Ursula?  I always forget.’

‘Five-and-twenty this month.’

’To be sure; I ought to have remembered.  And you have three hundred a year of your own.’

I nodded.

‘And your present home is distasteful to you?’ in an inquiring tone.

‘It is no home to me,’ I returned passionately.  ’Oh, Uncle Max, how can one call it home after the dear old rectory, where we were so happy, father, and mother, and Charlie—­and—­’

’Yes, I know, poor child; and you have had heavy troubles.  It cannot be like the old home, I am well aware of that, Ursula; but your aunt is a good woman.  I have always found her strictly just.  She was your father’s only sister:  when she offered you a home she promised to treat you with every indulgence, as though you were her own daughter.’

‘Aunt Philippa means to be kind,’ I said, struggling to repress my tears,—­tears always troubled Uncle Max:  ’she is kind in her way, and so is Sara.  I have every comfort, every luxury; they want me to be gay and enjoy myself, to lead their life; but it only makes me miserable; they do not understand me; they see I do not think with them, and then they laugh at me and call me morbid.  No one really wants me but poor Jill:  I am so fond of Jill.’

‘Why cannot you lead their life, Ursula?’

‘Because it is not life at all,’ was my resolute answer:  ’to me it is the most wearisome existence possible.  Listen to me, Uncle Max.  Do you think I could possibly spend my days as Sara does,—­writing a few notes, doing a little fancy-work, shopping and paying visits, and dancing half the night?  Do you think you could transform such a poor little Cinderella into a fairy princess, like Sara or Lesbia?  No; the drudgery of such a life would kill me with ennui and discontent.’

‘It is not the life I would choose for you, certainly,’ he said, pulling his beard in some perplexity:  ’it is far too worldly to suit my taste; if Charlie had lived you would have made your home with him.  He often talked to me about that, poor fellow.  I thought a year or two at Hyde Park Gate would do you no harm, and might be wholesome training; but it has proved a failure, I see that.’

‘They would be happier without me,’ I went on, more quietly, for he was evidently coming round to my view of the case.  ’Aunt Philippa does not mean to be unkind, but she often lets me see that I am in the way, that she is not proud of me.  She would have taken more interest in me if I had been handsome, like Sara; but a plain, dowdy niece is not to her taste.  No, let me finish, Uncle Max,’—­for he wanted to interrupt me here.  ’They made a great fuss about my training at the hospital last year, but I am sure they did not miss me; Sara spoke yesterday as though she thought I was going back to St. Thomas’s, and Aunt Philippa made no objection.  I heard her tell Mrs. Fullerton once “that really Ursula was so strong-minded and different from other girls that she was prepared for anything, even for her being a female doctor."’