she led rather a solitary life. She was a child with very pale flaxen
hair, very pale blue eyes, very pale cheeks--she looked like a china
doll who had been left by a careless mistress out in the rain. She was a
very sensitive child, cried at the least provocation, very affectionate,
too, and ready to imagine that people didn't like her.

Mr. Flint was a stout, elderly gentleman, whose favourite pursuit was to
read the newspapers in his club, and to inveigh against the Liberals. He
was pale and pasty, and suffered from indigestion. Mrs. Flint was tall,
thin and severe, and a great helper at St. Matthew's, the church round
the corner. She gave up all her time to church work and the care of the
poor, and it wasn't her fault that the poor hated her. Between the
Scylla of politics and the Charybdis of religion there was very little
left for poor Barbara; she faded away under the care of an elderly
governess who suffered from a perfect cascade of ill-fated love affairs;
it seemed that gentlemen were always "playing with her feelings." But in
all probability a too vivid imagination led her astray in this matter;
at any rate, she cried so often during Barbara's lessons that the title
of the lesson-book, "Reading without Tears," was sadly belied. It might
be expected that, under these unfavourable circumstances, Barbara was
growing into a depressed and melancholy childhood.

Barbara, happily, was saved by her imagination. Surely nothing quite
like Barbara's imagination had ever been seen before, because it came to
her, outside inheritance, outside environment, outside observation. She
had it altogether, in spite of Flints past and present. But, perhaps,
not altogether in spite of March Square. It would be difficult to say
how deeply the fountain, the almond tree, the green, flat shining grass
had stung her intuition; but stung it only, not created it--the thing
was there from the beginning of all time. She talked, at first to