distinguished her from the average girl of her class, and even from Lydia.  The meals which she and her sister took in their own room might be ever so poor; they were always served with a modest grace which perhaps would not have marked them if it had depended upon Lydia alone.  In this respect, as in many others, Thyrza had repaid her sister’s devotion with subtle influences tending to a comely life.

Once, when she had gone down alone to have tea, she said to Lydia on her return.  ‘Downstairs they treat me as if I was a lady,’ and it was spoken with the simple satisfaction which was one of her charming traits.

Till quite lately Gilbert had scarcely conversed with her at all.  When he broke his habitual silence he addressed himself to Lydia; if he did speak to the younger girl it was with studied courtesy and kindness, but he seemed unable to overcome a sort of shyness with which she had troubled him since the beginning of their acquaintance.  It was noticeable in his manner this evening when he shook hands with a murmured word or two.  Thyrza, however, appeared a little less timid than usual; she just met his look, and in a questioning way which he could not understand at the time.  The truth was, Thyrza wondered whether he had heard of her escapade of the night before; she tried to read his expression, searching for any hint of disapproval.

The easy chair was always given to her when she entered.  So seldom she sat on anything easier than the stiff cane-bottomed seats of her own room that this always seemed luxurious.  By degrees she had permitted herself to lean back in it.  She did so want Lyddy to know what it was like to sit in that chair; but it had never yet been possible to effect an exchange.  It might have offended Mrs. Grail, a thing on no account to be risked.

‘Lyddy has Mary Bower to tea,’ she said on her arrival this evening.  ’They’re going to chapel.  You don’t mind me coming alone, Mrs. Grail?’

‘You’re never anything but welcome, my dear,’ murmured the old lady, pressing the little hand in both her own.

Tea was soon ready.  Mrs. Grail talked with pleasant continuousness, as usual.  She had fallen upon reminiscences, and spoke of Lambeth as she had known it when a girl; it was her birthplace, and through life she had never strayed far away.  She regarded the growth of population, the crowding of mean houses where open spaces used to be, the whole change of times in fact, as deplorable.  One would have fancied from her descriptions that the Lambeth of sixty years ago was a delightful rustic village.

After tea Thyrza resumed the low chair and folded her hands, full of contentment.  Mrs. Grail took the tea-things from the room and was absent about a quarter of an hour.  Thyrza, left alone with the man who for her embodied so many mysteries, let her eyes stray over the bookshelves.  She felt it very unlikely that any book there would be within the compass of her understanding; doubtless they dealt with the secrets of learning—­the strange, high things for which her awed imagination had no name.  Gilbert had seated himself in a shadowed corner; his face was bent downwards.  Just when Thyrza was about to put some timid question with regard to the books, he looked at her and said: