practically earn her living! In this way she might indeed help to
lighten the load, but it would be at the cost of absolute
self-sacrifice. She must leave home, and father and mother, and
country!

Erica was not exactly selfish, but she was very young. The thought
of the voluntary sacrifice seemed quite unbearable, she could not
make up her mind to it.

"Why should I give up all this? Why should prejudice and bigotry
spoil my whole life?" she thought, beginning to pace up and down
the room with quick, agitated steps. "Why should we suffer because
that wretch has gone bankrupt? It is unfair, unjust, it can't be
right."

She leaned her arms on the window sill and looked out into the
silent night. The stars were shining peacefully enough, looking
down on this world of strife and struggle; Erica grew a little
calmer as she looked; Nature, with its majesty of calmness, seemed
to quiet her troubled heart and "sweep gradual-gospels in."

From some recess of memory there came to her some half-enigmatical
words; they had been quoted by Charles Osmond in his speech, but
she did not remember where she had heard them, only they began to
ring in her ears now:

"There is no gain except by loss, There is no life except by death,
Nor glory but by bearing shame, Nor justice but by taking blame."

She did not altogether understand the verse, but there was a truth