"I have not thought about it. I have always thought that `The best for the highest' ought to be our motto--it ought to be the motto of every one--the best for the highest, don't you understand?" "It is yours," said Marcia. "Well, anyhow," continued Angela, "I am so interested. I'll come and see you all some day." "They'd be ever so proud, and so would my stepmother. They think a great deal about you." Angela did not reply. "I am going to stay here for a little," she said, after a pause. "Father is quite happy to be with Uncle Herbert, and it is good for him not to have too much of his roaming life. I will ask him if I may not come and see you some day. He wouldn't come--he can't bear to go near Newcastle since dear old Court Prospect was sold." "I can quite understand that." "And will you come to see us--are you quite sure you will come during the summer?" "I hope so." "Do you think those girls will keep their compact?" "I don't know." "Do you mean to keep yours if they break it? that the point," said Angela, and now she leant back against the great clump of fern, and looked at her companion from under the shade of her black hat. Marcia glanced at her. "I shall do it," she said. "It would be somewhat painful for you. Your--your mother has got accustomed to you." "She is not my real mother." "Ought you to think of that, Marcia? Your real mother doesn't want you; this mother does." "Yes, I know what you mean, but I will not change; I am determined; I will help the girls to do their duty; I will not take their burden from them." "But ought they to consider the care of a mother a burden?" said Angela. "I think if I could find my own mother anywhere--" "Angela, you and they are not made out of the same materials." "Oh, yes, we are. I should like to talk to them." "You would have no effect. They would only look at you, and wonder why your hat looked different on you from their hats on them, and why you spoke with such a good accent, and why you are so graceful, and they would be, without knowing it, a little bit jealous." "You are not talking very kindly of them, are you, Marcia?" "I don't believe I am; shall we change the subject?" "Yes, certainly, if you like. What is your plan for the future, Marcia?" "I will tell you. I have some hopes; I think I have won my stepmother round very much to my views. She is the sort of woman who can be very easily managed, if you only know how to take her. If I had my stepmother altogether to myself and there was no one to interfere, I should not be at all afraid. But you see the thing is this--that while I influence her one day, the others undo all that I have said and done the next, and this, I fear, will go on for some time. Still, I think I have some influence, and I have no doubt when I get back to-night that I shall find Nesta has not transgressed any very open rules." "Poor Nesta," said Angela, "I understand her point of view a little bit--at least, I think I do."