Impossible for even a wise, uncommon parent not to be affected by such an announcement!

“I dare say your sister will give up her school now,” observed Mrs. Baines, to divert attention from her self-consciousness.

“Oh no!” And this time Mrs. Baines had genuinely shocked Miss Chetwynd.  “Nothing would induce Elizabeth to give up the cause of education.  Archibald takes the keenest interest in the school.  Oh no!  Not for worlds!”

“Then you think Sophia would make A good teacher?” asked Mrs. Baines with apparent inconsequence, and with a smile.  But the words marked an epoch in her mind.  All was over.

“I think she is very much set on it and—­”

“That wouldn’t affect her father—­or me,” said Mrs. Baines quickly.

“Certainly not!  I merely say that she is very much set on it.  Yes, she would, at any rate, make a teacher far superior to the average.” ("That girl has got the better of her mother without me!” she reflected.) “Ah!  Here is dear Constance!”

Constance, tempted beyond her strength by the sounds of the visit and the colloquy, had slipped into the room.

“I’ve left both doors open, mother,” she excused herself for quitting her father, and kissed Miss Chetwynd.

She blushed, but she blushed happily, and really made a most creditable debut as a young lady.  Her mother rewarded her by taking her into the conversation.  And history was soon made.

So Sophia was apprenticed to Miss Aline Chetwynd.  Mrs. Baines bore herself greatly.  It was Miss Chetwynd who had urged, and her respect for Miss Chetwynd ...  Also somehow the Reverend Archibald Jones came into the cause.

Of course the idea of Sophia ever going to London was ridiculous, ridiculous! (Mrs. Baines secretly feared that the ridiculous might happen; but, with the Reverend Archibald Jones on the spot, the worst could be faced.) Sophia must understand that even the apprenticeship in Bursley was merely a trial.  They would see how things went on.  She had to thank Miss Chetwynd.

“I made Miss Chetwynd come and talk to mother,” said Sophia magnificently one night to simple Constance, as if to imply, ’Your Miss Chetwynd is my washpot.’

To Constance, Sophia’s mere enterprise was just as staggering as her success.  Fancy her deliberately going out that Saturday morning, after her mother’s definite decision, to enlist Miss Chetwynd in her aid!

There is no need to insist on the tragic grandeur of Mrs. Baines’s renunciation—­a renunciation which implied her acceptance of a change in the balance of power in her realm.  Part of its tragedy was that none, not even Constance, could divine the intensity of Mrs. Baines’s suffering.  She had no confidant; she was incapable of showing a wound.  But when she lay awake at night by the organism which had once been her husband, she dwelt long and deeply