im might be well dressed. Nor did she feel it wrong, when the
holidays were over, and the boys had gone, that she should be left
idly drumming on the window-pane; that they should have every
advantage while she had none, and no prospect but the uncertain chance
of securing a husband if she held herself well and did as she was
told--a husband whom she would be expected to obey whatever he might
lack in the way of capacity to order. It is suffering which makes
these things plain to a generous woman; but usually by the time she
has suffered enough to be able to blame those whom it has been her
habit to love and respect, and to judge of the wrong they have done
her, it is too late to remedy it. Even if her faculties have not
atrophied for want of use, all that should have been cultivated lies
latent in her; she has nothing to fall back upon, and her life is
spoilt.

Beth stood idly drumming on the window-pane for long hours after the
boys had gone. Then she got her battered old hat, walked out to
Fairholm, and wandered over the ground where she had been wont to
retrieve for Jim. When she came to the warren, the rabbits were out
feeding, and she amused herself by throwing stones at them with her
left hand. She had the use of both hands, and would not have noticed
if her knife had been put where her fork should have been at table;
but she threw stones, bowled, batted, played croquet, and also tennis
in after years, with her left hand by preference, and she always held
out her left hand to be handed from a carriage.

She succeeded in killing a rabbit with a stone, to her own surprise
and delight, and carried it off home, where it formed a welcome
addition to the meagre fare. She skinned and cleaned it herself,
boiled it, carved it carefully so that it might not look like a cat on
the dish, covered it with good onion-sauce, and garnished it with
little rolls of fried bacon, and sent it to table, where the only
other dish was cold beef-bones with very little meat on them.

"Where did it come from?" Mrs. Caldwell asked, looking pleased.

"From Fairholm," Beth answered.

"I must thank your uncle," said Mrs. Caldwell.

"It was not my uncle," Beth answered, laughing; "and you're not to
send any thanks."

"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Caldwell, still more pleased, for she
supposed it was a surreptitious kindness of Aunt Grace Mary's. She ate
the rabbit with appetite, and Beth, as she watched her, determined to
go hunting again,