rl whose sweetheart is away knows quite well, and it is not important
that anybody else should.

There was a florist's shop in Southampton Row, and I went there every
morning for a little flower which I wore in the breast of my bodice,
making believe to myself that Martin had given it to me.

There was a jeweller's shop there too, and I sold my wedding ring
(having long felt as if it burnt my finger) and bought another wedding
ring with an inscription on the inside "_From Martin to Mary_."

As a result of all this caressing of myself I saw after a while, to my
great joy, that my good looks were coming back; and it would be silly to
say what a thrill of delight I had when, going into the drawing-room of
our boarding-house one day, the old actress called me "Beauty" instead
of the name I had hitherto been known by.

The second way in which God saved me from my loneliness was through my
condition.

I did not yet know what angel was whispering to me out of the physical
phase I was passing through, when suddenly I became possessed by a
passion for children.

It was just as if a whole new world of humanity sprang into life for me
by magic. When I went out for my walks in the streets I ceased to be
conscious of the faces of men and women, and it seemed as if London were
peopled by children only.

I saw no more of the crowds going their different ways like ants on an
ant-hill, but I could not let a perambulator pass without peering under
the lace of the hood at the little cherub face whose angel eyes looked
up at me.

There was an asylum for children suffering from incurable diseases in
the smaller square beside our boarding-house, and every morning after
breakfast, no matter how cold the day might be, I would open my window
to hear the cheerful voices of the suffering darlings singing their
hymn:

"_There's a Friend for little children,
Above the bright blue sky_."

Thus six weeks passed, Christmas approached, and the sad old city began
to look glad and young and gay.

Since a certain night at Castle Raa I had had a vague feeling that I had
thrown myself out of the pale of the Church, therefore I had never gone
to service since I came to London, and had almost forgotten that
confession and the mass used to be sweet to me.

But going home one evening in the deepening London fog (for the weather
had begun to be frosty) I saw, through the open doors of a Catholic
church, a great many lights in a side cha