ly it looks so nice that you
might fancy it wasn't Barmettle at all,' could scarcely be contradicted.

But Frances, like her mother, was born with the happy faculty for seeing
the best side of things. It was all, naturally, much harder on Jacinth.
And as Jacinth stood one morning in November looking out into the dreary
street, where rain had been pouring down ever since daybreak, and was
still dripping monotonously, she did feel that her lines had not of late
fallen in pleasant places. Yet she was not so selfish as this sounds.
She had made a struggle to see things as her parents did, and in this
she had not been entirely unsuccessful, and the constant love and
watchful sympathy which were now a part of her daily life, unconsciously
influenced her in good and gentle ways which she scarcely realised.

Some ground she had gained. She had come to see that if her father and
mother felt about the Harper family as they did, they could not have
acted otherwise. And her own conscience was not, it will be remembered,
entirely clear. 'Of course,' she said to herself, 'if Lady Myrtle had
been left to do as she wished, I should have felt it my duty to do
something for the Harpers. I'm sure I should have found some way of
managing it.' But no doubt there was a kind of relief in feeling it was
taken out of her hands, for Jacinth was growing gradually less confident
in her own powers: for the first time in her life she was realising the
delight and privilege of having others wiser than herself to whom she
could look up.

'Mamma,' she said, on the morning in question, 'do you think there
really are places where it rains ever so much more than at others? or is
it only that we notice it more at some? I really could almost think
that it rains here _every_ day.'

Mrs Mildmay smiled.

'No, dear, it really does not. I don't think the rainfall here is much
greater than in London or at Thetford, but the heavy air and the
grayness make us, as you say, notice it more. In many places where there
actually is more rain than the average, the country is peculiarly bright
and fresh. Think of the grass in Ireland.'

But Jacinth's thoughts were already wandering elsewhere.

'Mamma,' she began again, 'do you think we shall have to stay here for
Christmas?'

'I suppose so,' replied Mrs Mildmay. 'Even if Lady Myrtle wished it--as
indeed I am sure she does--it would hardly be worth while for us to go
to her for only two or three days, which is all