Carrie laughed as she gave this warning; but it struck both the shrewd, observant Haredales, that she had made a point of uttering it. "I shall take the dogs for a walk," she said, without waiting for an answer. "Poor things, they will be very dull when we are in London." "You should go too, Amethyst," said Una, as Carrie went out; "you are pale. If you did your duty, you would be considering exactly what amount of exercise would give the right shade of pink to your cheeks." "I shall consider nothing of the kind," said Amethyst, crossly. "Even my lady wouldn't plan and scheme in that way. At least she does things because she likes them." "Darling, I did not mean to vex you," said Una, distressed, as Amethyst started up and went over to the window, with an impetuous movement, unlike her ordinary self-restraint. "Oh, not you, Una. But every one plans and schemes; Aunt Annabel does. I know what all this talking about `poor Charles' means very well. She would do anything, in spite of all her religion, to `support the title,' as she calls it. I'd rather live honestly for my own pleasure. But, there--we all plan and scheme, as I say, and make up our lives. And we can never make them as they were once intended to be." Her breast heaved and her eyes filled, as the thought forced itself upon her, that, let her success in life be what it would, it could never give her anything better, anything nearly so good as one hour with Lucian in the woods at Cleverley. "That was Paradise," she thought; "but I couldn't live in it now!" "I'd rather be downright wicked than worldly," she said, defiantly. "Oh, my darling," said Una, "you don't know what being wicked is like! But, Amethyst, our lives _are_ made for us. That is what I have found out--made just as they ought to be." "Oh yes, in a sense, of course," said Amethyst, "but there's a good deal of making left for ourselves and other people, and we, or they, don't make them very well." "Yes," said Una, with shining eyes, "outside things; but not the real life, not the life within. Amethyst, the feel of that Presence is as real to me, as the feel of your arms round me when I am tired and miserable--as real, and even better. Come what may, I shall have it to remember. I know now, how the Martyrs could smile when they were burnt to death!" Amethyst gazed at her, uncomprehending, almost wishing that Una was not going to enter on grown-up life with this new strange force within her. She recalled a saying that she had once heard Mr Riddell quote, "that a great deal of religion needed a great deal of looking after," and she felt half afraid. She was correct and careful in the performance of the religious duties in which she had been trained; but all the glow of feeling, with which she had knelt by Lucian's side in Cleverley Church, had departed with the earthly love from which she had hardly distinguished it.