And now, the thought of going into society with her mother was full of dazzle and charm. She had had a very happy life. Her home with her aunt had been made bright by many little pleasures, and varied by all the interests of her education. The Saint Etheldred's of which she had spoken was a girls' school in the neighbourhood of Silverfold, founded and carried on with a view to uniting the best modern education with strict religious principles. Amethyst and a few other girls attended as day scholars. She had been thoroughly well taught; her nature was susceptible to the best influences of the place, and she was popular and influential with her school-fellows. By far the prettiest girl in the school, among the cleverest, and the only one with any prestige of rank, she had grown up with a considerable amount of self-confidence. She did not feel herself ignorant of life, nor was she of the exclusive high-toned life in which she had been reared. She had helped to manage younger girls, she had been a very important person at Saint Etheldred's, and she honestly believed herself capable of taking her aunt's burden on her shoulders and of carrying it successfully. She also thought herself capable of cheerfully sacrificing the gaieties of the great world for this dear aunt's sake. She felt quite convinced that work was a nobler thing than pleasure, and that a Saint Etheldred's teacher would be happier than an idle young lady. She did not give in to her aunt's arguments. She was not so young and foolish as auntie supposed. She felt quite grown-up, surely she looked so. She turned to the looking-glass to settle the point. She saw a tall girl, slender and graceful, holding her long neck and small head with an air of dignity and distinction; which, nevertheless, harmonised perfectly with the simplicity and modesty of her expression. "Grown-up," in her own sense she might be, but she had the innocent look of a creature on whom the world's breath had never blown; and though there was power in the smooth white brow, and spiritual capacity in the dark grey eyes, there was not a line of experience on the delicate face; the full red lips lay in a peaceful curve, and over the whole face there was a bloom and softness that had never known the wear and tear of ill-health, or ill feelings. "I don't look like a child," she said to herself, "and I know so much more of the world than the girls who are always shut up in school, and never see a newspaper or read a novel. I should be fit for a teacher, I might go home for one season and be presented, if mother likes, and then come back and help auntie. I should like to know my sisters. It strikes me I do know very little about them all. Yes, I _should_ like to go home."