"Well, it is rather strange, but I happen to know a woman who would be glad to go to your uncle as housekeeper. She used to be a cook at my old home, but she is a most superior woman, and she loves the country. I have not said anything to you, but I have been corresponding with her about the post for some time. When you were ill and I had that talk with your uncle, he said that he had often thought it was much too lonely a life for a girl of your age, but he would not dream of turning you out to earn your own living. I told him that was what you were longing to do, and he said he wished that you had talked to him about it. So then I set to work. Now when you are quite strong, you can go anywhere you like. He will be able to give you a small allowance to keep you from starving. What will you do, I wonder?" Louise could hardly believe her ears. That very day, she wrote to her old school friend the art student in London, and before very long, she had arranged to share her small flat with her, and seek for congenial work in that neighbourhood. Anstice listened to the eager girl's hopes and aspirations. She did not like to quench her ardour, but wrote to her cousins in London and asked them to befriend her, and take her to occasional concerts and entertainments. As to what she was going to do, Louise had very little idea. "I am not stupid. If other girls can learn shorthand and typewriting, I can, and if I can't get office work, I shall go into some shop or business place. I don't care what I do; I wouldn't mind selling flowers, if only I can be in the middle of life again and in London." But when the time came for her to leave the Manor, Louise was very tearful. She hugged Anstice in quite a childish way. "You won't give me up, and forget me? You will write to me and let me write to you?" "My dear, I don't make friends one day, and give them up the next. Of course, we will write to each other. I am in a way responsible for this London move, but I feel, when we are young, 'oughts' go down under 'wants.' It is of no use eating one's heart out thinking of all the brave things we could do and dare, the best thing is to be given the opportunity of attempting them." "Yes, I shall be grateful to you all my life for getting me this chance. I hope I shall make good! Though I feel you don't in your heart approve of my going. You think it best for me to buy my experience! I know! But you just wait and see! The hardest thing of all is to go away from you!" She went back to Ramdale for a week, and then departed to London, and Anstice really missed her, for she had been in and out of the Manor so much. One day Anstice asked Mrs. Fergusson to stay to lunch when the children's lessons were over. "This incessant rain is getting upon my nerves," she said to her laughingly. "I did not know I had any till lately. I feel as if I want a good talk with some one to take me out of myself."