dially. "I think cheerfulness is
a fortune in itself. I wish I had it."

"And Rex is just like him," said Mrs. Gascoigne. "I must tell you the
comfort we have had in a letter from him. I must read you a little
bit," she added, taking the letter from her pocket, while Anna looked
rather frightened--she did not know why, except that it had been a rule
with her not to mention Rex before Gwendolen.

The proud mother ran her eyes over the letter, seeking for sentences to
read aloud. But apparently she had found it sown with what might seem
to be closer allusions than she desired to the recent past, for she
looked up, folding the letter, and saying--

"However, he tells us that our trouble has made a man of him; he sees a
reason for any amount of work: he means to get a fellowship, to take
pupils, to set one of his brothers going, to be everything that is most
remarkable. The letter is full of fun--just like him. He says, 'Tell
mother she has put out an advertisement for a jolly good hard-working
son, in time to hinder me from taking ship; and I offer myself for the
place.' The letter came on Friday. I never saw my husband so much moved
by anything since Rex was born. It seemed a gain to balance our loss."

This letter, in fact, was what had helped both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna
to show Gwendolen an unmixed kindliness; and she herself felt very
amiably about it, smiling at Anna, and pinching her chin, as much as to
say, "Nothing is wrong with you now, is it?" She had no gratuitously
ill-natured feeling, or egoistic pleasure in making men miserable. She
only had an intense objection to their making her miserable.

But when the talk turned on furniture for the cottage Gwendolen was not
roused to show even a languid interest. She thought that she had done
as much as could be expected of her this morning, and indeed felt at an
heroic pitch in keeping to herself the struggle that was going on
within her. The recoil of her mind from the only definite prospect
allowed her, was stronger than even she had imagined beforehand. The
idea of presenting herself before Mrs. Mompert in the first instance,
to be approved or disapproved, came as pressure on an already painful
bruise; even as a governess, it appeared she was to be tested and was
liable to rejection. After she had done herself the violence to accept
the bishop and his wife, they were still to consider whether they would
accept her; it was at her peril that she was to look, spe