ow to hate you round the bonfire. Now I'm afraid
I must go."

"One minute first," said Antonia. "Did you say that leaving this place
would kill your father?"

"I'm afraid it will," said Nell. "He won't come home--mother can't get
him to come back. He came the night he had sold the Towers, and Boris
and I saw him; but I don't think he'll ever come back again. I think his
heart is broken. But I cannot speak of it any longer, please--it hurts
me so dreadfully here."

Nell had risen from the grass--she stood tall and thin and pale by
Antonia's side. When she uttered the last words, she pressed her hand
against her heart.

"Good-bye," she said solemnly. "Jane Macalister said I was to be in at
twelve o'clock to help her with some darning. Good-bye."

Antonia held out one of her very long, very bony hands. She slipped it
round Nell's waist, and drawing her close, kissed her gently between her
eyebrows, then she let her go.

Nell left the paddock; but Antonia did not attempt to finish her
interrupted sketch. She sat on, lost in a world of musing. At last she
uttered some emphatic words aloud.

"I'm not much use," she said to herself; "nobody cares about me, and I
care for no one. I love art with a divine passion; but art does not need
such a poor, feeble disciple. Art can still exist and be glorious
without Antonia. I am ugly I know, and I have no genius; but I have got
one power--I can get my own way. All my life long, through a queer kind
of persistence which is in me, I have got my way. I do not get it
because people love me, for I don't honestly think a soul in the wide
world loves me, but I get it because--because of something which I don't
myself understand. It's a power I've got; it's my one gift. Did mother
want me to study art in Paris? No; still I went. Did mother wish me to
become grotesque, and to wear a dress like this? No; still I wear it.
Did mother intend me to come with her on Saturday to the Grange? No, a
thousand times no; still I came. I can twist mother round this finger.
She appeals to me; I counsel her; she asks my advice; she is obliged to
take it whether she likes or not. Mother is completely under my thumb.
So it was with the professor who taught me; so it was with the students
who worked with me; so it will be in the future with Hester, if I still
wish it; and with Sir John Thornton, if I ordain it. They think very
little of Antonia now; but wait until they feel my power; wait until I
choose