nd Beth was so overcome by her
generosity, and so anxious to prove her repentance, that she borrowed
sixpence more from her, and went straightway to the hairdresser's, and
had all her pretty hair cropped off close like a boy's, by way of
atonement. When she appeared, Lady Benyon burst out laughing; but her
mother was even more seriously annoyed than she had been by the
hairdresser's bill. Beth's hair had added considerably to her market
value in Mrs. Caldwell's estimation. She would not have put it so
coarsely, but that was what her feeling on the subject amounted to.

"What is to be done with such a child?" she exclaimed in despair.

"Send her to school," Aunt Grace Mary gasped.

"She would be expelled in a month," Mrs. Caldwell averred.

"Possibly; but it would be worth the trial," Aunt Grace Mary rejoined
in her breathless way.

"Yes," Lady Benyon agreed. "She has been at home far too long, running
wild, and it's the only thing to be done. But let it be a strict
school."

"How am I to afford it?" Mrs. Caldwell wailed, rocking herself on her
chair.

"Well, there's the Royal Service School for Officers' Daughters; you
can get her in there for next to nothing, and it's strict enough,"
Lady Benyon suggested.

And finally, after the loss of some more precious time, and with much
reluctance, Mrs. Caldwell yielded to public opinion, and decided to
deprive Jim of Beth's little income, and send Beth to school, some new
enormities of Beth's having helped considerably to hasten her mother's
decision.

CHAPTER XXIX

Mrs. Caldwell's married life had been one long sacrifice of herself,
her health, her comfort, her every pleasure, to what she conceived to
be right and dutiful. Duty and right were the only two words
approaching to a religious significance that she was not ashamed to
use; to her all the other words savoured of cant, and even these two
she pronounced without emphasis or solemnity, lest the sense in which
she used them might be mistaken for a piece of religiosity. Of the joy
and gladness of religion the poor lady had no conception.

Nevertheless, as has already been said, Mrs. Caldwell was an admirable
person, according to the light of her time. To us she appears to have
been a good woman marred, first of all, by the narrow outlook, the
ignorance and prejudices which were the result of the mental
restrictions imposed upon her sex; secondly, by having no conception
of her duty to herself; and fina