want. To avoid this fate she worked early and late at the factory, and Kate
was left in the charge of the landlady, a childless old woman who, sitting
by the fire, used to tell stories of her deceptions and misfortunes in
life, thereby intoxicating the little girl's brain with sentiment. The
mother's influence was a sort of make-weight; Mrs. Howell was a deeply
religious woman, and Kate was often moved to trace back a large part of
herself to Bible-readings and extemporary prayers offered up by the bedside
in the evening.

Her school-days were unimportant. She learnt to read and write and to do
sums; that was all. Kate grew, softly and mystically as a dark damask rose,
into a pretty woman without conversions or passions: for notwithstanding
her early training, religion had never taken a very firm hold upon her, and
despite the fact that she married into a family very similar to her own,
although her mother-in-law was almost a counterpart of her real mother--a
little harder and more resolute, but as God-fearing and as kind--Kate had
caught no blast of religious fervour; religion taught her nothing, inspired
her with nothing, could influence her in little. She was not strong nor
great, nor was she conscious of any deep feeling that if she acted
otherwise than she did she would be living an unworthy life. She was merely
good because she was a kind-hearted woman, without bad impulses, and
admirably suited to the life she was leading.

But in this commonplace inactivity of mind there was one strong
characteristic, one bit of colour in all these grey tints: Kate was dreamy,
not to say imaginative. When she was a mere child she loved fairies, and
took a vivid interest in goblins; and when afterwards she discarded these
stories for others, it was not because it shocked her logical sense to read
of a beanstalk a hundred feet high, but for a tenderer reason: Jack did not
find a beautiful lady to love him. She could not help feeling disappointed,