no break in the
unruffled calm of her demeanour. Her mother wondered at her, and was
irritated, and fussed about the luggage, and fumed about trains she
feared to miss; but Beth kept calm. She sat in her corner of the
carriage looking out of the window, and the world was a varied
landscape, to every beauty of which she was keenly alive, yet she gave
no expression to her enthusiasm, nor to the discomfort she suffered
from the August sun, which streamed in on her through the blindless
window, burning her face for hours, nor to her hunger and fatigue; and
when at last they came to the great house by the river, and her
mother, having handed her over to Miss Clifford, the lady principal,
said, somewhat tearfully, "Good-bye, Beth! I hope you will be happy
here. But be a good girl." Beth answered, "Thank you. I shall try,
mamma," and kissed her as coolly as if it were her usual good-night.

"We do not often have young ladies part from their mothers so
placidly," Miss Clifford commented.

"I suppose not," Mrs. Caldwell said, sighing.

Beth felt that she was behaving horridly. There was a lump in her
throat, and she would liked to have shown more feeling, but she could
not. Now, when she would have laid aside the mask of calmness which
she had voluntarily assumed, she found herself forced to wear it.
Falsifications of our better selves are easily entered upon, but hard
to shake off. They are evil things that lurk about us, ready but
powerless to come till we call them; but, having been called, they
hold us in their grip, and their power upon us to compel us becomes
greater than ours upon them.

Mrs. Caldwell felt sore at heart when she had gone, and Beth was not
less sore. Each had been a failure in her relation to the other. Mrs.
Caldwell blamed Beth, and Beth, in her own mind, did not defend
herself. She forbore to judge.

CHAPTER XXX

St. Catherine's Mansion, the Royal Service School for Officers'
Daughters, had not been built for the purpose, but bought, otherwise
it would have been as ugly to look at as it was dreary to live in. As
it was, however, the house was beautiful, and so also were the grounds
about it, and the views of the river, the bridge with its many arches,
and the grey town climbing up from it to the height above.

Beth was still standing at the top of the steps under the great
portico, where her mother had left her, contemplating the river, which
was the first that had flowed into her experi