r making friends, and she was so accustomed to
taking the lead and being the elder, that she was slow to enter into the
give and take on more or less equal ground that is an essential
condition of pleasant and profitable intercourse between the young.

And her ideal friend--much as she learned to love and esteem hearty
generous Bessie and gentle little Margaret--Jacinth's friend of friends
came to be Camilla, whose two or three years' seniority seemed only to
bring them closer, for Jacinth was in many ways 'old for her age.'

Yes, it was a happy time, even though now and then some twinges of
self-reproach made Jacinth feel how little she had at one time merited
the loving confidence with which her new friends treated her.

'But that you must bear, my dear,' said Lady Myrtle, when on one or two
occasions this feeling grew so acute that she had to express it to some
one. 'Take it as your punishment if you think you deserve it. For it
would be cruel to distress these candid, unselfish girls by confessions
of ill-will or prejudice which no longer exist. For my sake, dear
Jacinth, for my sake too, try now to "let the dead past bury its dead."'

And the girl did so.

* * * * *

Some happy years followed this good beginning. Years not untouched by
trouble and trials, but with an undercurrent of good. Barmettle never
became a congenial home, but Jacinth as she grew older lost her extreme
dislike to it, in the happiness of being all together, and knowing that
not only was her father satisfied with his work, but that many
opportunities for helping others were open to herself and Frances, as
well as to their active unselfish mother.

And bright holidays with Lady Myrtle, when old Robin Redbreast stretched
his wings in some wonderful way so as to take in his kind owner's
grand-nephews and nieces as well as the Mildmay party, went far to
reconcile Jacinth and Frances to the gloom and chill of their home in
the north.

Perhaps Christmas was the most trying time. For a merry family party
would have been something to look forward to at that season. But the
dear old lady, alas! had spent her last Christmas in England that
year--that first year at Thetford--when Jacinth and Frances and Eugene
were her guests. For her health grew more and more fragile, and every
season her time at Robin Redbreast had to be cut shorter and shorter,
till at length barely six months of the twelve could be spent by her i