her lessons like a dog on a bone, endeavouring to pack the
conscientious work of twelve months into less than six.

The days were feverish with energy. But at night the loneliness
returned, and was only the more intense because, for some hours on end,
she had been able to forget it.

On one such night when she lay wakeful, haunted by the prospect of
failure, she turned over the leaves of her Bible--she had been
memorising her weekly portion--and read, not as a school-task, but for
herself. By chance she lighted on the Fourteenth Chapter of St John,
and the familiar, honey-sweet words fell on her heart like caresses.
Her tears flowed; both at the beauty of the language and out of pity
for herself; and before she closed the Book, she knew that she had
found a well of comfort that would never run dry.

In spite of a certain flabbiness in its outward expression, deep down
in Laura the supreme faith of childhood still dwelt intact: she
believed, with her whole heart, in the existence of an all-knowing God,
and just as implicitly in His perfect power to succour His human
children at will. But thus far on her way she had not greatly needed
Him: at the most, she had had recourse to Him for forgiveness of sin.
Now, however, the sudden withdrawal of a warm, human sympathy seemed to
open up a new use for Him. An aching void was in her and about her; it
was for Him to fill this void with the riches of His love.--And she
comforted herself for her previous lack of warmth, by the reminder that
His need also was chiefly of the heavy-laden and oppressed.

In the spurt of intense religious fervour that now set in for her, it
was to Christ she turned by preference, rather than to the remoter God
the Father. For of the latter she carried a kind of Michelangelesque
picture in her brain: that of an old, old man with a flowing grey
beard, who sat, Turk-fashion, one hand plucking at this beard, the
other lying negligently across His knees. Christ, on the contrary, was
a young man, kindly of face, and full of tender invitation.

To this younger, tenderer God, she proffered long and glowing prayers,
which vied with one another in devoutness. Soon she felt herself led by
Him, felt herself a favourite lying on His breast; and, as the days
went by, her ardour so increased that she could not longer consume the
smoke of her own fire: it overspread her daily life--to the renewed
embarrassment of her schoolfellows. Was it then impossible, they aske