called duties. My present existence seemed to shut me in like prison
bars. Only to be free, to choose my own life! And then came emancipation
in the shape of hard hospital work, when health and spirits returned to
me; when, under the stimulus of useful employment and constant exercise
of body and mind, I slept better, fretted less, and looked less
mournfully out on the world. Uncle Max was right when he said a year
at St. Thomas's would save me.

By and by the idea dawned upon me that I might still carry out my plan;
there were poor people at Heathfield, where Uncle Max's parish was. What
should hinder me from living there under Uncle Max's wing and trying to
combine the two lives, as Charlie wished?

I was young, full of activity. I did not wish to shut myself out from my
kind. I could discharge my duties to my own class and enjoy a moderate
amount of pleasure. I was young enough to desire that; but the greater
part of my time would be placed at the disposal of my poorer neighbours.
People might think it singular at first, but they would not talk for
ever, and the life would be a happy one to me.

All this had been said in that voluminous letter of mine to Uncle Max;
he might argue and shake his head over it, thereby proving himself a
wise man, but he could not but know that I was absolutely under my own
control, as far as a woman could be. I need ask no one's advice in the
disposal of my own life; his own and Uncle Brian's guardianship was
merely nominal now. After five-and-twenty I was declared my own
mistress in every sense of the word.

Uncle Brian came out to meet us as soon as he heard Uncle Max's voice
in the hall; the two were very great friends, and they shook hands