‘How could I?’ Thyrza uttered in surprise.  ’What sort of people would have that thought?’

‘Oh, very many that I know.’

’Surely not, Mrs. Emerson!  But it’s quite true; my cheeks feel a little hot to-night.  They generally do when I’ve been making myself very happy about anything.’

‘But you’re always so happy.’

‘Not more than you are,’ Thyrza replied, laughing.

’Well, I think you show it more.  When I’m happiest, I sit very quiet, and look very dull.  Now you sing, and your eyes get so bright and large, you don’t know how large your eyes look sometimes.’

Thyrza laughed and shook her head.

‘I sing too much,’ she said.  ’If I don’t mind I shall be hurting my voice.  But it’s late; I must be off to bed.  And I know I shan’t sleep all night.  To tell the truth, it isn’t often I sleep more than three or four hours.  Good-night, Mrs. Emerson!

‘Good-night, happy girl!’

She went away, laughing in pure, liquid notes.  Her light step could not be heard as she ran up the stairs.

It wanted but a week of the day to which Thyrza’s life had pointed for two years.  That day of the month had stood long since marked upon her calendar; and now the long months had annihilated themselves; it wanted but seven days.

External changes of some importance had come to her of late.  Since her admission to Mr. Redfern’s choir she no longer wrought with her needle.  More than that, every other day there came a lady who read with her and taught her.  The time of weary toil without assistance was over.  She had never been able to seek help of Mrs. Emerson; it was repugnant to her to speak of what she was doing in secret.  To tell of her efforts would have seemed to Thyrza like half revealing her motives, so closely connected in her own mind were the endeavour and its hope.  Mrs. Ormonde had known, but hitherto had offered no direct assistance.

To the latter Thyrza’s relation was a strange one.  As her mind matured, as her dreaming gave way more frequently to conscious reflection, she often asked herself how, knowing Mrs. Ormonde’s thoughts, she could accept from her so much and repay her with such sincere affection.  Told to her of another, she could with difficulty have believed it.  Yet the simple truth remained that she had never shrunk from Mrs. Ormonde’s offers of kindness, had never felt humiliated in receiving anything at her hands.  This could not have been but for the sincerity of affection on Mrs. Ormonde’s side.  A dialogue such as that which Thyrza had overheard at Eastbourne would have inspired hatred in a nature less pure than hers.  She had wondered, had at times thought that Mrs. Ormonde misjudged her; yet such was the simple candour of her mind that, instead of fostering evil, that secret knowledge had wrought upon her in the most beneficial way.  ’She thinks that I am no fit wife for him; but that isn’t all.  She thinks of me, too, and believes that he could not