planning that when the
children were old enough to do without her, she would go as a nurse to
a big London hospital, and rise to be a ward sister, or perhaps--who
knew?--even a matron. In the meanwhile her talent for administration
had to confine itself within the bounds of the Parsonage and the
parish, where it was apt to become just a trifle dictatorial and
overbearing. It is so hard for a young, keen, ardent nature, anxious
to set the world right, to remember that infinite patience must go
hand in hand with our best endeavours, and that the time of sowing is
an utterly different season from that of harvest.

Between Gwen and Beatrice there was often friction. The former
resented being ordered about by a sister of only twenty, and would
prove rebellious on occasion. Really, the two girls' dispositions were
much alike, but Beatrice's early position of responsibility had turned
into strength of character what was at present mere manifestation of
independence and often bravado in Gwen.

Winnie, a sweet-tempered, pretty girl of eighteen, had just been made
an under-mistress at "Rodenhurst", Miss Roscoe's school, which she and
Gwen and Lesbia attended daily. Teaching was not at all Winnie's
vocation, she hated it heartily, but as her services cancelled her
sisters' school fees, she was obliged to accept the unwelcome drudgery
for the sake of the help it gave to her father's narrow income. If it
was Beatrice's ambition to go out into the world and carve a career
for herself, it was certainly Winnie's ideal to stop at home. She was
a born housekeeper, and loved sewing and cake-baking and jam-making,
and dusting the best china, and gardening, and rearing poultry and
ducks. It seemed a great pity that she could not have changed places
with her elder sister, but Beatrice's education had been stopped too
soon for her to be of any use as a teacher, while Winnie, though not
clever, had been carefully trained in Rodenhurst methods. Fortunately
she had a very cheerful, sunny disposition, that was prone to make the
best of things, so she struggled along, taking Miss Roscoe's many
suggestions and reproofs so amiably that the Principal, often irate
at her lack of capacity, had not the heart to scold her too severely.
Of her own choice, I am afraid, Winnie would never have opened a book,
but she managed to get up her subjects for her classes, and was a
conscientious, painstaking mistress, if not a brilliant one.

After Gwen came the