mportant people in the
whole of creation.

CHAPTER XXIII.

AT SCHOOL AGAIN.

It is a curious fact that there are some weak but loving people who are
not loved in return. If they are sincere and honest they always inspire
respect. If they are at the same time unselfish, that noble quality must
also tell in the long run. But to look at them is not to love them, and
consequently they go through life with a terrible heart-longing unknown
to their fellow-men, only known to the God above, who will doubtless
reward these simple and earnest and remarkably beautiful souls in His
own good time in another world.

Such a person was Emily Frost. She was very patient, very brave, very
unselfish; but no one particularly cared for her. She knew this quite
well; she had a passionate hunger for love, but it was not bestowed upon
her. She was well educated and could teach splendidly, but she could
never arouse enthusiasm in her pupils. A far less highly educated woman
could do twice the amount poor Miss Frost could ever achieve, simply
because she possessed the gift denied to the latter.

Now, Agnes Frost was much of the same temperament as her half-sister.
She also was timid, easily frightened, very easily subdued, but
sympathetic, loving, and unselfish. Agnes, however, had the great power
of inspiring love in all those with whom she came in contact. Miss Frost
herself worshiped that little delicate and beautiful face, those sweet
lips, that tender and dainty form. She felt she could almost die for the
child. But the child, although she loved her half-sister, did not love
her in the passionate way that Miss Frost desired. Irene was the first
person to whom Agnes had given all her strong powers of affection. For
Irene she would have done anything. She did not care nearly so much for
Rosamund, although she admired her, and Rosamund herself was drawn to
the child and attracted by her. Agnes had been perfectly happy while at
The Follies; never a fear had she of the much-dreaded Irene. It is true
she had not heard the dreadful stories of the toads and wasps and
leeches; but whether she heard them or not, it would be difficult now to
remove her affection from the girl who adored her, and whom she in
return so worshiped.

Miss Frost looked on, tried to be satisfied, tried to believe that
Rosamund was right when she told her that nothing in all the world could
happen more advantageously for little Agnes' future; but nevertheless