"I feel humbled to the dust, but I'm very grateful for my answered prayer. And it makes me want more than ever to be good, really good like you. Do you think I shall ever be so? Don't say you aren't good." "None of us are really good, my child. But you will learn to love more, and then your service will be easier." Gentian's face was very sweet and grave. She clasped her hands round her old friend's arm and looked up into his face very earnestly. "I have felt uncomfortable for weeks. I knew that I was doing every day what you all disapproved of! Now to-morrow I am making a fresh start. And I will learn to love more, and trust more. Now will you play to me?" Sir Gilbert gladly acquiesced; he went to his organ and Gentian settled herself in a comfortable chair to listen. Sir Gilbert had said to Mrs. Wharnecliffe: "Your little friend has a dual nature: she is by turns a wayward, gay little soul, and a very sweet and earnest aspirant after holy things." And certainly now, Gentian, with her wistful eyes and rapt grave face, was very different from the mischievous laughing girl which most outsiders knew and admired. When the music ceased Gentian rose to go. "One day I shall compose," she said slowly and thoughtfully; "and my first composition will be a soul's flight to Paradise. We often get to the gates before we die. We go up like the skylark and then we drop as swiftly as he does to earth again. I get so close to the gates when you play to me! And when you stop, I drop like a stone to the ground." "Then my music is of no use to you," Sir Gilbert said a little sadly. "But yes, it is," she said, seizing his hand and keeping it between both of hers. "We can't live above the earth always; but it makes me long and long for the Unseen Land. And I am praying and trying to live as I should, till I reach it." "May God bless you, my child," was the blind man's quick response. And then Gentian bent her head and pressed her lips to his wrinkled hand. "I have come to you in my bad moments," she said; "and to-day I thought I must give you my good news. Au revoir." She left him and arrived home with a happy, smiling face. "Waddy, you did a good thing when you came down here on my account. I think we're going to have a rattling good time, don't you?" Miss Ward smiled. "Well, yes, my dear, we have certainly fallen on our feet. There are very few men so generous and kind as your cousin has been to us." "Oh, Cousin Thorold. I wasn't thinking of him. He's a very good buffer, as he said, and he's useful at times, but there are other friends round about us, and I hope I shall make fresh friends to-morrow. I'm longing to see my new employer." CHAPTER VII A PRIVATE CHAUFFEUR "MRS. WHARNECLIFFE and Miss Brendon," announced an elderly maidservant, opening the door of the big drawing-room at the Mount.