And Aspatria found this "habit of living" to be a good staff to lean upon. She assumed certain duties, and performed them; and the house was pleasanter for her oversight. Will and Brune came far oftener to sit at the parlour fireside, when they found Aspatria there to welcome them. And so the days and weeks followed one another, bringing with them those commonplace duties and interests which give to existence a sense of stability and order. No one spoke of Fenwick; but all the more Aspatria nursed his image in her heart and her imagination. He had dressed himself for his marriage with great care and splendour. Never had he looked so handsome and so noble in her eyes, and never until that hour had she realized her social inferiority to him, her lack of polish and breeding, her ignorance of all things which a woman of birth and wealth ought to know and to possess. This was a humiliating acknowledgment; but it was Aspatria's first upward step, for with it came an invincible determination to make herself worthy of her husband's love and companionship. The hope and the object gave a new colour to her life. As she went about her simple duties, as she sat alone in her room, as she listened to her brothers talking, it occupied, strengthened, and inspired her. Dark as the present was, it held the hope of a future which made her blush and tingle to its far-off joy. To learn everything, to go everywhere, to become a brilliant woman, a woman of the world, to make her husband admire and adore her,--these were the dreams that brightened the long, sombre winter, and turned the low dim rooms into a palace of enchantment. She was aware of the difficulties in her way. She thought first of asking Will to permit her to go to a school in London. But she knew he would never consent. She had no friends to whom she could confide her innocent plans, she had as yet no money in her own control. But in less than two years she would be of age. Her fortune would then be at her disposal, and the law would permit her to order her own life. In the mean time she could read and study at home: when the spring came she would see the vicar, and he would lend her books from his library. There was an Encyclopaedia in the house; she got together its scattered volumes, and began to make herself familiar with its _melange_ of information. In such efforts her heart was purified from all bitterness, wounded vanity, and impatience. Life was neither lonely nor monotonous, she had a noble object to work for. So the winter passed, and the spring came again. All over the fells the ewes and their lambs made constant work for the shepherds; and Aspatria greatly pleased Will by going out frequently to pick up the perishing, weakly lambs and succour them.