She did not much enjoy, nor greatly value beauty. She had deep reasons for distrusting the kind of beauty which Amethyst inherited. But she was perfectly aware that her young niece was beautiful, and that, whatever Amethyst might think at eighteen, the matter would look very different to her at eight and twenty. "My dear," she said, "it can't be. Your parents would never consent, and you don't know what you are talking of. There's only one right thing to do. As I can no longer do my duty by you, or give you proper advantages, I--I--must give you up, and let you go home. Indeed, I have agreed to do so." Miss Haredale turned her face away in the struggle to control her tears, so that she did not see the look that was not sorrow on Amethyst's face. But in another moment the girl's arms were round her neck. "No--no, auntie," she said, "that would not be right at all. You often say how poor my father is for his position, and how he let me go because there were so many girls to provide for. It wouldn't be at all right for me to go back on his hands now, and to leave you in your trouble. I won't do it, auntie." "My dear," said Miss Haredale, "you will be a great deal more on his hands if you don't get a chance of settling yourself. If only I knew better--if only I thought that all was as it should be! You are a dear good affectionate child, and I've kept you too innocent and ignorant. But you will be a good girl, Amethyst, wherever you may be. I am sure I could trust you." "Oh yes, auntie, I think you could," said Amethyst, simply. "But I should be helped to be good if I went on at Saint Etheldred's." "I will talk to you presently," said Miss Haredale, after a tearful pause. "Run away, my darling, and leave me to compose myself." Amethyst, with the despised list in her hand, went away into her own bedroom, and sat down by the window to think on her own account. She had been taken from her home at seven years old, and since then, her intercourse with it had been confined to short visits on either side, and even these had ceased of late years, as Lord and Lady Haredale had lived much on the continent. She knew that her father's affairs were involved, that the heir, her half-brother, was in debt, and, as Miss Haredale put it, "not satisfactory, poor dear boy." She knew also that her half-sister, Lady Clyste, lived abroad apart from her husband, and that her own younger sisters had travelled about and lived very unsettled lives. But what all these things implied, she did not know at all. She thought her little-known mother the loveliest and sweetest person she had ever seen, and when she heard that her family were going to settle down for a time at a smaller place belonging to them not far from London, she had been full of hope of closer intercourse.