Her time of serious study only began when she exchanged London for the mountain solitude.  Henceforth her father’s influence exerted itself freely, and Annabel had just reached the age for profiting most by it.  Her bringing up between a brilliant drawing-room and a well-stocked library had preserved her from the two dangers to which English girls of the free-born class are mainly exposed:  she escaped Puritanism, yet was equally withheld from frivolous worldliness.  But it was well that this balance, admirably maintained thus far, should not be submitted to the risks of such a life as awaited her, if there had come no change of conditions.  She would be a beautiful woman, and was not unaware of it; her social instincts, which Society would straightway do its best to abuse, might outweigh her spiritual tendencies.  But a year of life by Ullswater consolidated her womanhood.  She bent herself to books with eagerness.  The shock of sorrow compelled her to muse on problems which as yet she had either not realised, or had solved in the light of tradition, childwise.  Her mind was ripe for those modern processes of thought which hitherto had only been implicit in her education.

To her father Annabel’s companionship was invaluable.  She repaid richly out of the abundance of her youthful life that anxious guidance which he gave to her thoughts.  Her loving tact sweetened for him many an hour which would else have been spent in profitless brooding:  when the signs of which she had become aware warned her that he needed to be drawn from himself, she was always ready with her bright converse, her priceless sympathy.  Without her he would seldom have exerted himself to wander far from the house, but Annabel could at any time lead him over hill and valley by pretending that she had need of a holiday.  Their communion was of a kind not frequently existing between father and daughter; fellowship in Study made them mental comrades, and respect for each other’s intellectual powers was added to their natural love.  What did they not discuss?  From classical archaeology to the fire-new theories of the day in art and science, something of all passed at one time or another under their scrutiny.

Yet there was the limit imposed by fine feeling.  Mr. Newthorpe never tried to pass the sacred bound which parts a father’s province from that of a mother.  There was much in the girl’s heart that he would gladly have read, yet could not until she should of herself reveal it to him.  For instance, they did not very often speak of Egremont.  When a letter arrived from him, Mr. Newthorpe always gave it to Annabel to read; at other times that was a subject on which he spoke only when she introduced it.  After Walter’s departure there had been one conversation between them in which Annabel told what had come to pass; she went so far as to speak of a certain trouble she had on Paula’s account.

‘I think you must use your philosophy with regard to Paula,’ her father replied.  ’Of course I know nothing of the circumstances, but,’ he smiled not unkindly, ’the child I think I know pretty well.  Don’t be troubled.  I have confidence in Egremont.’