balance-sheet, and what the Vicar thought, which was the final test of everything. Why did she like this stranger so much better than the clergy? It was because his tone and his looks and what he said were a little variety, and breathed of the outside world and the wider horizon. To be sure, it had seemed to her a little while ago that everything noblest and highest was to be had within the ‘House,’ where so many consecrated souls were giving themselves up to the service of God and the poor. But being inside had modified the views with which she had contemplated the ‘House’ from without. The world itself, the wicked and foolish world, though no less foolish and wicked, had gained a certain interest. There was variety in it: it was perhaps more amusing than the ‘House.’ These thoughts filled the mind of Agnes as the door, which was always kept locked, was closed upon her. The horizon grew narrower as she came in--that was a natural effect, for of course four straight walls must cut out a great deal of sky--but the effect seemed greater than usual that day. She felt shut in; nothing could be easier than to unlock the door, though it looked so heavy--but there was a feeling of confinement somehow in the air. Agnes had to go into the severe Gothic room, with windows high in the wall, where the children were coming in to tea, while Mr. Oswald Meredith walked away in the free air as he pleased, holding his head high. She breathed a soft sigh unawares. Where was the ideal now? There came upon her a vision of the woods and the Hill, and the winding paths that led to it, and of the four winds that were always blowing there, and the leaves that answered to every breath. What a thing it would be to thread through the woods, as she had done so often, with the wind fresh in her face, chill but vigorous, breathing life and exhilaration! How one’s ideal shifts and changes about when one is twenty! The ‘House’ looked poor indeed in the weariful afternoon about the darkening, full of the odour of weak tea. Things grew very serious, however, next week, when, exactly as it happened before, just as she came out of the hospital from her visit to Emmy, Mr. Oswald Meredith once more appeared. He was both sorry and glad in a breath--sorry to be too late for personal inquiries, glad to have been so fortunate as just to find her--the best authority about the child. ‘I felt sure you would be going to see her,’ he said. ‘Little Emmy is a lucky little girl. May I hear how she is getting on? though I scarcely deserve it for being so late.’