They did not grow happier together after this. Some time before Mr St. Hubert's death the care of household affairs had been committed by him into the hands of a relative of his own--a widow of the name of Ascot; and during his life-time nothing transpired to occasion any doubt as to her entire fitness for the position he had given her. She was a French woman by birth, and spoke English very imperfectly, though her deceased husband had been an Englishman. She was a very quiet, firm person, faithful in the performance of all her duties, and careful and exact in the management of the household expenses. She never presumed on her relationship in any way that was disagreeable to Mr St. Hubert, and, by her attention to himself and her kindness to Mrs Vane, won his confidence entirely; and his anxiety as to the future of his daughter and her children was in a great measure allayed by the promise she made never to leave them while they needed her care. But after his death matters were not so well managed. At least, they were not managed to the satisfaction of poor Mrs Vane. In a very short time an entire change was effected in the household. Mr Vane found it an improvement as far as _his_ comfort was concerned, or probably Mrs Ascot's stay in the house would have been short. But it was not so with Mrs Vane. Mrs Ascot was very quiet, very reasonable, and, above all, very firm. "Nothing was so necessary for Mrs Vane as entire quiet," she declared; and the poor mother had not the strength or courage to carry on a battle with her stronger will. So her two little daughters were sent to school, and her two little sons, with their nurse, were banished to the part of the house most distant from their mother's room, and were only permitted to visit it at certain times. They would have been sent to school, too, if Mrs Ascot could have accomplished it; but, as the eldest was only four years of age at the time of his grandfather's death, this she could hardly do. Only one thing saved Mrs Vane from falling into hopeless fretfulness or helpless imbecility--this was the constant presence of her eldest and dearest child, Selina. Even Mrs Ascot's cold-heartedness could not separate these two. Even Mr Vane's selfishness was not equal to planning or permitting anything that could come between the mother and her child. For the little girl was blind,--had been blind from her seventh year, and since that time she had never once been beyond the sound of her mother's voice. A great many of God's best blessings come to us disguised as sorrows. It seemed to this mother, when she could no longer doubt that the light of heaven was to be denied to her child, that God could deal no harder blow, and in her wild angry way she prayed that the little creature might die. She thought of all that had made life sweet to herself, from all which her child must be shut out for ever, and she utterly refused to be comforted.