arental influence has the greatest significance. On the rare
occasions when they are permitted to enter the august presence of their
parents, they are often treated with a combination of tolerant
affection and imperial severity. Small wonder the little ones in their
development to adolescence evade giving confidences that have neither
been asked for nor encouraged. They have to learn the great secrets of
life and of nature from either bitter experience or from the lips of
strangers. Children and parents grow up apart. It often takes a
convulsion of nature or a devastating scandal to awaken the latter to
the full realisation of their responsibility.

During their talk the morning following that illuminating incident, Peg
learned more of Ethel's real nature than she had done in all of the
four weeks she had seen and listened to her daily.

She had opened her heart to Peg, and the two girls had mingled
confidences. If they had only begun that way, what a different month it
might have been for both! Peg resolved to watch Ethel's career from
afar: to write to her constantly: and to keep fresh and green the
memory of their mutual regard.

At times there would flash through Peg's mind--what would her future in
America be--with her father? Would he be disappointed? He so much
wanted her to be provided for that the outcome of her visit abroad
would be, of a certainty, in the nature of a severe shock to him. What
would be the outcome? How would he receive her? And what had all the
days to come in store for her with memory searching back to the days
that were? She had a longing now for education: to know the essential
things that made daily intercourse possible between people of culture.
She had been accustomed to look on it as affectation. Now she realised
that it was as natural to those who had acquired the masonry of gentle
people as her soft brogue and odd, blunt, outspoken ways were to her.

From, now on she would never more be satisfied with life as it was of
old. She had passed through a period of awakening; a searchlight had
been turned on her own shortcomings and lack of advantages. She had not
been conscious of them before, since she had been law unto herself. But
now a new note beat in on her. It was as though she had been
colour-blind and suddenly had the power of colour-differentiation
vouchsafed her and looked out on a world that dazzled by its new-found
brilliancy. It was even as though she had been tone-deaf and