happen when Farmer Jocelyn died? For one thing she would have to
quit Briar Farm. She could not stay in it when Robin Clifford was
its master. He would marry, of course; he would be sure to marry;
and there would be no place for her in his home. She would have to
earn her bread; and the only way to do that would be to go out to
service. She had a good store of useful domestic knowledge,--she
could bake and brew, and wash and scour; she knew how to rear
poultry and keep bees; she could spin and knit and embroider;
indeed her list of household accomplishments would have startled
any girl fresh out of a modern Government school, where things
that are useful in life are frequently forgotten, and things that
are not by any means necessary are taught as though they were
imperative. One other accomplishment she had,--one that she hardly
whispered to herself--she could write,--write what she herself
called "nonsense." Scores of little poems and essays and stories
were locked away in a small old bureau in a corner of the room,--
confessions and expressions of pent-up feeling which, but for this
outlet, would have troubled her brain and hindered her rest. They
were mostly, as she frankly admitted to her own conscience, in the
"style" of the Sieur Amadis, and were inspired by his poetic
suggestions. She had no fond or exaggerated idea of their merit,--
they were the result of solitary hours and long silences in which
she had felt she must speak to someone,--exchange thoughts with
someone,--or suffer an almost intolerable restraint. That
"someone" was for her the long dead knight who had come to England
in the train of the Duc d'Anjou. To him she spoke,--to him she
told all her troubles--but to no one else did she ever breathe her
thoughts, or disclose a line of what she had written. She had
often wondered whether, if she sent these struggling literary
efforts to a magazine or newspaper, they would be accepted and