"Yes, Miss Kathleen," I answered. I could say "Yes" to all three questions. But I couldn't talk about what I felt yet, even to her. It was too sacred and too solemn; and I wasn't worthy. I had to strive to live as a child of God; that was the great matter. Doing and living are far more than mere talking. CHAPTER XII. ON A PLATFORM. I HAD been asked to Mrs. Withers' for two or three weeks, but she kept me there for six weeks and more. Once in every few days I had a letter from Mary. She spoke of mother as better for the change to Bristol, but still as not herself. I wondered if she ever would be her true self again; but Mrs. Withers bade me trust and hope; and I did try, though it wasn't easy. Mary didn't say much about plans in her letters. I could not make out whether I was to join her and mother in Bristol, or whether we were to meet in Claxton again. Once I asked, and there came no answer to the question. So I let it alone, and just waited, not knowing. Mrs. Withers had heard from Mr. Armstrong, I knew; and he was sure to have been told everything about mother. It wasn't so hard to wait, with the new help and life that had come to me. And yet nobody need suppose that I hadn't plenty of battling, or that doing right was all at once quite easy to me. No such thing. I had to fight hard, and pray hard. But there was the difference that I did pray, and that I was learning how to fight. Old temptations had power over me yet; of course they had. Was it to be expected they'd die out in a moment? I was getting to a more true and right notion of what Walter Russell was. He had led me into evil. He had deceived and taught deceit. I saw all this, and I did resolve that, God helping me, there should be nothing further between us, even if he wished it, at least until he should be another sort of man—and nothing at any time hidden from my mother. But still I couldn't at once cast aside all thoughts of him. I do believe there's an unhealthy power which some people have over some others, and which makes the breaking loose from them a hard matter. But I believe that anybody who wills may break loose from such a bondage, through prayer and resolute doing. Well, at last I heard I was to go to Bristol. Mary wrote that the doctors were afraid of Claxton for mother yet, and of course Mrs. Withers couldn't be expected to keep me on for any length of time. Besides, it was right I should go to mother, now I was all right in health, and strong again. Mary didn't say this; but I felt it. The puzzle to me was how Mary had managed to be so long away from her brother. She never so much as said his name in her letters, and I knew she had taken to dressmaking again among her old friends. The six weeks at Deane Rectory had been a wonderful help to me; and so had Mr. Withers' teaching, though I haven't said anything about that. His sermons were beautiful, and now and then he'd say a thing in passing that stayed by one for days.