ds, and her feet as neat as those of a lady.
Even her voice had lost something of its uncouth drawl, and its lazy
softness had a charm of its own. She was very imitative.

For some time Philip had been aware that his lady's protegee was
developing into an attractive young woman.

"You say she seems devoted to the child?" he asked thoughtfully.

"I think so, yes. She is always making clothes for the baby, and playing
with it, and petting it--when Jacqueline will let her. But,"--Kate
sighed faintly--"maternity isn't enough for all women, it seems."

It was such remarks as this that gave Philip his strong hope for the
future.

But now he put himself aside to consider the problem of Mag Henderson.
From the first he had foreseen that it was not a problem to be handled
as simply as Kate thought to handle it. The psychological instinct of
the priest was very strong in him--doubtless there had been many a good
cure of souls among past generations of Benoixes, professing an older
faith than his. In moments of clear vision that came to him he battled,
as all thinkers must battle, with a great discouragement, a sense of
helplessness that was almost terrifying. Of what use man's puny human
endeavors against the forces of predestination arrayed against him--the
forces of heredity, temperament, opportunity?

Mag Henderson cost him a wakeful night; and from her his thoughts kept
straying oddly and unaccountably to Jacqueline, little Jacqueline, his
playmate and pupil and chum, with her mischievous, daredevil impulses
and her generous heart. He jerked his thoughts back angrily to poor Mag
Henderson.

Why should he bracket the two together thus, the one a weed shooting up
in a neglected fence corner, the other the loveliest and most lovingly
tended blossom in a garden?--why, indeed, except that both were come,
weed and flower alike, to the period of their blooming.

CHAPTER XXI

Kate's thoughts, too, were busy with her young adventurers into the
world, throughout a wakeful night; only her anxieties did not concern
themselves with Jacqueline. A nature so trusting, so unconscious, so
bubbling over with friendliness toward all mankind, could not fail to
make friends for itself among strangers, among even enemies. She had
smiled to notice Jacqueline's success with the young men Thorpe had
brought to supper. Her own girlhood had been a succession of just such
triumphs. But belle as she was, many a ballroom had been spoiled