"I was always a crooked, stunted little thing," she went on, with a
lovely smile. "My childhood was a sad ordeal; it was just battling
with pain, and making believe that I did not mind. I used to try and
bear it as cheerfully as I could, because mother fretted so over me;
but in secret I was terribly rebellious, often I cried myself to
sleep with angry passionate tears, because I was not like other girls.

"Do you care to hear all this?" interrupting herself to look at my
attentive face. It must have been a sufficient answer, for she went
on talking without waiting for me to speak.

"Giles was very good to me, but it was hard on him for his only
sister to be such a useless invalid. He was active and strong, and I
could not expect to keep him chained to my couch--I was always on a
couch then--he had his friends and his cricket and football, and I
could not expect to see much of him, I had to let him go with the rest.

"Things went on like this--outward submission and inward revolt--much
affection, but little of the grace of patience, until the eve of
my confirmation, when a stranger came to preach at the parish church.
I never heard his name before, and I never have heard it since.
People said he came from a distance; but I shall never forget that
sermon to my dying day, or the silvery penetrating voice that
delivered it.

"It was as though a message from heaven was brought straight to me,
to the poor discontented child who sat so heart weary and desponding
in the corner of the pew. I cannot oven remember the text; it was
something about the suffering of Christ, but I knew that it was