But when one has travelled on for many years and come many a cropper on
the way one _does_ long to show one's children the short cuts! That's
_one_ short cut. Darsie; I wish you'd take it, and avoid the falls. If
you can't have what you like, try to like what you have. Expect good,
not evil. Say to yourself every morning: `This is going to be a good
day, a happy day, one of the happiest days of my life,' and then you are
half-way towards making it so. Poor little Kiddie! it sounds hard, but
try it--try it--and occasionally, just for a change, forget that you are
Darsie Garnett for five minutes or so at a time, and pretend instead
that you are Maria Hayes! Pretend that you are old and lonely and
ailing in health, and that there's a young girl staying with you from
whom you are hoping to enjoy some brightness and variety! Eh? The
other morning in church you were beside me when we were singing `Fight
the good fight!' You sang it heartily, Darsie; I enjoyed your
singing.--I thought you looked as if you really meant the words. Well,
here's the battlefield for you, dear! Are you going to play coward? I
don't believe it. I think better of my girl!"

He laid his hand on her shoulder with a caressing touch. Darsie
wriggled and screwed up her little nose in eloquent grimace, but when
the hand crept up to her chin she lifted her face for the farewell kiss,
and even volunteered an extra one on her own account on the dear, thin
cheek.

Mr Garnett smiled contentedly to himself as he descended the staircase.
Darsie had made no promises, but he was satisfied that his words had
not been in vain. And Darsie, left alone in her room, fell
instinctively to repeating the words of the grand old hymn--

"Run the straight race through God's good grace,
Lift up thine eyes, and seek His Face..."

A little sob punctuated the lines. To the blind eyes of earth the
straight race appeared so very very crooked!

CHAPTER EIGHT.

FIRST DAYS.

Darsie left home on the following Thursday, and in company with Aunt
Maria and "my woman" took train for Arden, in Buckinghamshire. The
journey was a nightmare, for Lady Hayes disliked travelling, and was in
a condition of nervousness, which made her acutely susceptible to the
doings of her companions. Within an hour of starting Darsie had been
admonished not to sit facing the engine because of the draught, not to
look out of the window in case she got a cinder in her eye, not to