“I am afraid I have been selfish,” she said, coming and kneeling beside her friend, and locking her slender fingers agitatedly.  “It is very hard always to do right.  Believe, though, that I erred only in judgment, not through intention.  Help me to do better.”

“Dear child,” said the motherly woman, touched by the generous confession, “we are none of us perfect.  We can only try.  I have said this solely for your own good.  You realize that, I am sure.  My only wish is to make you happy.”

Clemence took up with her friend’s advice.  She found enough to occupy her, for there is plenty to do in the world.  It needs only the willing heart.  She became the instrument of much good, and many sick and sorrowful learned to love the low-voiced girl who came among them in her sable robes.

The winter passed quietly and uneventfully.  Clemence went very little into society.  She had no desire for it.  She was content to be forgotten, and let those who were eager for the strife, crowd and jostle each other for the empty honors, for which she did not care to put in a claim.  Not but that she had once been ambitious of distinction, and had been told by loving friends that she possessed talents that it was wrong to bury.  There was no one to care now for her success or failure.  It mattered little how the years were passed.  They would find her a lonely, sorrowing woman, without home or friends.  No one, be they never so hopeful, could anticipate happiness in such a future.  Clemence did not, but she knew she should, in time, learn to be contented with her lot.  Others had been before her.  Then, too, something whispered that it would not be for long.

Mrs. Linden watched her anxiously, noting the troubled look on the girl’s face, and questioned her as to its cause.

“Don’t yield to despondency,” she would say.  “You must go more into society.  Solitude is not good for you.”

Obedient to her wish, Clemence afterwards accompanied her whenever she went from home.

Thus passed the time until her twentieth birthday.  She reviewed, sadly, on that occasion, her past life, and formed her plans for the future.  The result of her cogitations was, that not long after, she left the roof that had sheltered her since her bereavement, but to which she had no real claim, and commenced upon a new life.

This was very much against her friend’s wishes.

“What wild idea has taken possession of your visionary mind now?” she queried.  “Just when I thought you were quite contented to stay with me, you start off to teach a score or more of ignorant little savages in some obscure part of some obscure region, not yet blessed with the telegraph or railroad.”

“Not quite so bad as that, I hope,” said Clemence, laughing.  “Don’t, please, raise any objections to my plan, kind friend; for I want to feel that it has your sanction.  Perhaps, if I get tired of teaching, I will come back to you again.”