"You know all about it," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe with a smile. "Of course I do. Cousin Thor and I write to each other continually." Mrs. Wharnecliffe looked at the girl, but said nothing. She was puzzled herself as to what had better be done with Gentian, now that her natural protector had left her. "If you really want to live on in your present home," she said presently, "it will be quite easy to find you some nice person as companion—or somebody of that class to live with you." "Thank you," said Gentian, with a little fire in her eye—"I shall not need anyone to supplant dear Waddy." She had refused to discuss the subject further. She seemed to Mrs. Wharnecliffe to have suddenly developed into a very remote and self-reliant young woman. But then Mrs. Wharnecliffe had not seen her last letter to Thorold, a letter that was causing him to wrinkle his brows with much perplexity of soul. "Oh, Cousin Thor, do you know what has happened? The skies have fallen on me, my world has gone to pieces, and I am crushed to atoms. My darling Waddy has left me. I hoped, as you know, that she was going to get well. But she had another seizure, and she left me without a word, excepting that she pointed upwards and murmured 'Home.' What does a girl do when her comforter, and mentor, and prop, and refuge is taken from her? Waddy filled my mother's place, she was my safety valve, she circled me with attentions and ministrations and love. I thought I was independent and self-reliant. Just as much as a limpet is independent of its rock! And I am rebellious, and desolate, and absolutely at the end of everything. What am I to do? How am I to live? I don't promise to do a single thing you say, but you must write to me at once—sheets, please! And inspire me with a desire to live, and imbue me with some fraction of courage—and tell me what I ought to be thinking, and saying, and doing. I am so frightfully unprepared for this awful blow. You are never unprepared for anything. But all the same I don't believe you can say anything that will bring me the least ray of light or comfort. "I'm trying to be self-controlled. I say to myself—'I'll eat my breakfast, I'll take a walk—I'll order dinner and eat it. I'll darn my stockings and mend the household linen, and do all the things I most dislike, until tea comes, and then I'll take another walk, and then I'll eat my supper; and then I'll go to bed, and I'll go round and round this treadmill till I die, but never shall I feel happy and gay and young again.' "There's one thing I can't do. I can't go into church and play my beloved organ. I did it for her funeral, but I shudder at the thought of touching it again. And I think my nerves have gone to pieces. I feel if I took 'Mousie' out, I would drive myself into eternity. I daren't trust myself at her wheel. I daren't go over to the Miss Buchans yet. I daren't start driving Miss Anne out. So all my favourite pursuits are gone.