t expectations. She was already recognised as an artist of no
mean order. Now and then she came down to the Willows, bringing Grace
Cobham with her; and the young women filled the house with company. Now
and then they two went abroad together, and satisfied their souls with
the beauty of the art of other lands. But principally they lived in
London, for the passion to be near the centre of things had come upon
Elisabeth; and when once that comes upon any one, London is the place in
which to live. People wondered that Elisabeth did not marry, and blamed
her behind her back for not making suitable hay while it was as yet
summer with her. But the artist-woman never marries for the sake of
being married--or rather for the sake of not being unmarried--as so many
of her more ordinary sisters do; her art supplies her with that
necessary interest in life, without which most women become either
invalids or shrews, and--unless she happens to meet the right man--she
can manage very well without him.

George Farringdon's son had never turned up, in spite of all the efforts
to discover him; and by this time Elisabeth had settled down into the
belief that the Willows and the Osierfield were permanently hers. She
had long ago forgiven Christopher for setting her and her interests
aside, and going off in search of the lost heir--at least she believed
that she had; but there was always an undercurrent of bitterness in her
thoughts of him, which proved that the wound he had then dealt her had
left a scar.

Several men had wanted to marry Elisabeth, but they had not succeeded in
winning her. She enjoyed flirting with them, and she rejoiced in their
admiration, but when they offered her their love she was frightened and
ran away. Consequently the world called her cold; and as the years
rolled on and no one touched her heart, she began to believe that the
world was right.

"There are three great things in life," Grace Cobham said to her one
day, "art and love and religion. They really are all part of the same
thing, and none of them is perfected without the others. You have got
two, Elisabeth; but you have somehow missed the third, and without it
you will never attain to your highest possibilities. You are a good
woman, and you are a true artist; but, until you fall in love, your
religion and your art will both lack something, and will fall short of
perfection."

"I'm afraid I'm not a falling-in-love sort of person," replied Elisabeth
m