Caron, her companion, very much better than--most women I have met."

This was not what she was going to say, but she checked herself, lest
she might be suspected of thinking uncharitably of Mrs. Falchion. I,
of course, agreed with her, and told her the story of Galt Roscoe and
Hector Caron, and of Justine's earnestness regarding her fancied debt
to Roscoe.

I saw that the poison of anxiety had entered the girl's mind; and it
might, perhaps, bear fruit of no engaging quality. In her own home,
however, it was a picture to see her with her younger sisters and
brothers, and invalid mother. She went about very brightly and sweetly
among them, speaking to them as if she was mother to them all, angel of
them all, domestic court for them all; as indeed she was. Here there
seemed no disturbing element in her; a close observer might even have
said (and in this case I fancy I was that) that she had no mind or heart
for anything or anybody but these few of her blood and race. Hers was a
fine nature--high, wholesome, unselfish. Yet it struck me sadly also,
to see how the child-like in her, and her young spirit, had been so early
set to the task of defence and protection: a mother at whose breasts
a child had never hung; maternal, but without the relieving joys of
maternity.

I knew that she would carry through her life that too watchful, too
anxious tenderness; that to her last day she would look back and not
remember that she had a childhood once; because while yet a child she had
been made into a woman.

Such of the daughters of men make life beautiful; but themselves are
selfish who do not see the almost intolerable pathos of unselfishness