nished. When
her manuscript was complete, she slipped out and posted it to a
weekly paper. It appeared that same Saturday, and was the
beginning of Herminia's most valuable connection.

But even after she had posted it the distracted mother could not
pause or rest. Dolly tossed and turned in her sleep, and Herminia
sat watching her. She pined for sympathy. Vague ancestral
yearnings, gathering head within her, made her long to pray,--if
only there had been anybody or anything to pray to. She clasped
her bloodless hands in an agony of solitude. Oh, for a friend to
comfort! At last her overwrought feelings found vent in verse.
She seized a pencil from her desk, and sitting by Dolly's side,
wrote down her heart-felt prayer, as it came to her that moment,--

A crowned Caprice is god of the world:
On his stony breast are his white wings furled.
No ear to hearken, no eye to see,
No heart to feel for a man hath he.

But his pitiless hands are swift to smite,
And his mute lips utter one word of might
In the clash of gentler souls and rougher--
'Wrong must thou do, or wrong must suffer.'

Then grant, O dumb, blind god, at least that we
Rather the sufferers than the doers be.

XVI.

A change came at last, when Dolly was ten years old. Among the men
of whom Herminia saw most in these later days, were the little
group of advanced London socialists who call themselves the
Fabians. And among her Fabian friends one of the most active, the
most eager, the most individual, was Harvey Kynaston.

He was a younger man by many years than poor Alan had been; about
Herminia's own age; a brilliant economist with a future before him.
He aimed at the Cabinet. When first he met Herminia he was charmed
at one glance by her chastened beauty, her breadth and depth of
soul, her transparent sincerity of purpose and action. Those
wistful eyes captured him. Before many days passed he had fallen
in love with her. But he knew her history; and, taking it for
granted she must still be immersed in regret for Alan's loss, he
hardly even reckoned the chances of her caring for him.

'Tis a common case. Have you ever noticed that if you meet a
woman, famous for her connection with some absorbing grief, some
historic tragedy, you are half appalled at first sight to find that
at times she can laugh, and make merry, and look gay with the rest
of us. Her callous glee shocks you. You mentally expect her to be