Miss Gregson herself was greatly loved by the girl for taking such pains with her education, for Sheila soon tired of teaching reading and writing, and passed her over to her kind old friend who was glad of this piece of work; it gave her the opportunity of teaching Meg more than mere earthly knowledge. Gradually she taught the girl to understand that there was One above Who rules our lives, and that "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights, with Whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." "You must remember, my dear child," she would say, "that change is our portion here, as you have indeed found, change in our lives and in our friends; but supposing everything should change and every person we know and love cease to care for us, we still have God, Who changes not." Miss Gregson could never forget when talking to her eager pupil, now so happy and contented with the good things which were being showered upon her, that the day might not be far distant when Sheila, notwithstanding all her good intentions, might tire of her new hobby, and she determined to do all she could to prepare the girl for that day should it ever come, so that Meg should not be anchorless or rudderless when the storms of life swept over her. Meg proved herself an adept pupil as far as reading, writing, and arithmetic were concerned. Moreover, because she wanted to do credit to Sheila, she spent hours over her lessons and took immense pains with her voice and grammar. At the close of her first year at Friars Court few would have imagined had they seen and heard the girl for the first time, what had been her origin, or under what circumstances she had come to live at the Court. It was only when she was entirely off her guard that she would relapse into her old way of speaking, and use the expressions to which Sheila so objected. Meanwhile Meg was growing more and more accustomed to her new life, and thought as rarely as she could of the old. In fact her past seemed to her a kind of nightmare. She could hardly believe that she was the same girl who used to tramp the lanes footsore and weary, and be thankful if she had a bed of clean straw to sleep upon. At times she would dream that she was back again in the van enduring all the hardships and rough treatment of those days, dreading to hear the tap, tap of the wooden leg of her 'father,' and the oath that would be flung at her if she had earned no money by her singing. She would wake trembling, to find herself lying in her little white bed with the scent of lavender around her, and the roses nodding in at the window.