“That is very easy for you to say, my dear, very easy indeed. You are young and do not know the value of money and of position and of an estate like this. It is the feeling that you do not realize these things, that made it necessary for your uncle and myself to ask Mr. O’Connor to—to absent himself—until you have had time to make up your mind. We want you to travel and to see the world. We want you to meet people and to have a chance to compare this one with that. But when we insist upon all this, it may seem to you as if we were opposing you and setting ourselves against your happiness, whereas, above everything else, we want to do what is for your best interest.” She looked more solemn than ever. “You are going against your own heart, Auntie,” I told her. “It is that which makes you seem so changed. Oh, don’t think about it at all. Just treat me the way you did at first. Love me, love me! Somehow, the other matter will straighten itself out. We have troubles enough without bringing any on ourselves.” But she wouldn’t take the matter lightly. She seemed very much depressed. Uncle was very sad, too, partly on account of the loss of his mother, partly because he was made to act the part of a ‘stern guardian,’ when it is not in keeping with his nature. I feel sure he tried to dissuade grandmother from doing what she did, but he did not succeed. I think, myself, that if people at Mallowbanks had more to do they would be a great deal happier. Well, anyway, I kept my promise to my nice twenty-seventh cousin, Miss Ravanel, and came away over to her, and was put in a quaint, bare, sunny room, and here I have been for almost a week. My chocolate is sent up to my bed in the morning; Miss Ravanel does not appear until ten. Then we meet in the morning room and she embroiders while I read “Lorna Doone” to her. She has been in England in the Lorna Doone country, and she interrupts the reading to tell me about what she has seen. It is very interesting. But, Oh, Carin, it is as if I were listening to something afar off, and as if the bright fire burning in the grate, the pale sunshine on the pines, the little room with its fantastic chintz, were all a dream. It does not seem real at all to me. Is it because I am always thinking of something else? Did I do well, Carin, to give up my life with Mother McBirney, my little busy, useful, struggling life, and to come here among my relatives, who are, after all, strangers? Yes, yes, I know that for a time I felt at ease with them, that to be among my own people brought me great delight. But now, suddenly, I seem useless and stripped of all that made life rich. * * * * * * * * * Carin, I have just been reading this over, and I never read anything more dismal. You remember that song of Jean Ingelow’s where the dove sat on the mast and mourned and mourned and mourned. Well, I sound precisely like that ridiculous dove.