sound.

"Dear child, she only wanted a word in season," he thought. And he
said:

"I am glad to see that you have put away vain dreams, Lizzie. And your
labours will not be thrown away, either. If you go on taking pains I
daresay you will be able to paint some nice blotting-books and screens
for the School Bazaar."

"I daresay," said Betty, adding between her teeth, "If you only knew!"

"But we mustn't keep Letitia from her work," he added, vaguely
conscientious. Letitia flounced off, and Betty, his back turned, tore
up the drawing.

And, as a beautiful background to the gross realism of Mothers'
meetings and Parish tiresomenesses, was always the atmosphere of the
golden mornings, the dew and the stillness, the gleam of his white
coat among the pine-trees. For he was always first at the tryst now.

Betty was drunk; and she was too young to distinguish between
vintages. When she had been sober she had feared intoxication. Now she
was drunk, she thanked Heaven that she was sober.




CHAPTER IV.