"The greatest of all things, Amethyst. I know about religion now--I know about _Him_! The confirmation classes, and all Mr Ross has taught us--and his sermons--oh, it is all so beautiful. I longed, I wanted to be good. If one could go and live in a place like Saint Etheldred's, out of the temptations of the world! But yesterday he talked to us separately, and I couldn't help telling him a little, what a bad, wicked child I had been. And he said things. And somehow, last night, as I lay awake, there came the most wonderful feeling, and I knew it was all true, and that there is peace and rest I _knew_ it. One can be happy without earthly love, and--and all the things people care for. It's quite true, Amethyst, I--I saw Him right in my heart, and I _know_..." She lifted her face, all transfigured and radiant, as she uttered the holiest of names in an awe-struck whisper. Amethyst looked at her, with the dreaming, seeking, unsatisfied eyes which were in such curious contrast to the repose of her beautiful face. "You knew always," said Una. "That was what made you so different to us all, when first you came." Amethyst smiled a smile that would have been a little cynical, if it had not been so intensely sad. "I'm not very good, darling," she said. "Life's rather a complicated business, as you know very well." "Yes," said Una, "but I feel as if I should not mind anything very much, now. Now there is something to get back into, to hide oneself in. But it is all your doing, my jewel. What should I have been like but for you?" Una believed, poor child, that the struggle of life was over for her, or at least robbed of all its hardness. These weeks at Silverfold had lifted her into a new world; and when, a day or two after Amethyst's arrival, the confirmation for which she had been preparing took place, the fervour of her self-dedication seemed to shine through her, as, with a face white as her dress, but beautiful with peace and joy, she came down the little church amid the crowd of stolid white-capped country girls, experiencing a sense of ineffable rest and joy. Was this but another and more dangerous phase of the varying emotions to which she was subject, a lifting up that was likely to end in a more violent fall? It might be so. But, only through the higher possibilities of her emotions could salvation come to so emotional a creature; she was one to whom all good must come at risk of fatal loss. Amethyst had no answering experience. She was a strong and healthy creature, with vigorous spirits and growing energies, which one blow could not crush. In spite of many bitter hours, she had found interests and enjoyments. Vexatious as in many ways the long months abroad with her mother had been, uncongenial as were many of the visits which she had paid with her, she enjoyed seeing new places, she made new friends, took up new pursuits, thought new thoughts.