"My dear child, if you were to ask my opinion, I should say the atmosphere at the Rectory was far happier. Clowns laugh, you know, with breaking hearts. Laughter and noise are no true test of happiness. Don't barter away your substance for a shadow, Maude. Minley Court is a place of shadows and unrealities of paint and camouflage, and Mrs. Burke, for all her jolly gaiety, would give a good deal I believe to have your father's outlook instead of her own. You see I am taking you into my confidence when I talk like this. I am very fond of Mrs. Burke and I'm deeply sorry for her. For she is chasing shadows, and trying to persuade herself that they are the substance." "She had an unhappy girlhood," said Maude, unconvinced. "She told me all about it." "Well, you haven't had that, have you?" "No—no—but sometimes—lately—I feel as if Father is rather strict about some things." "Of course you would think so, and being much at Minley Court will make you think so—" "Now, Miss Arbuthnot, you speak as if you disapprove of Minley Court, and yet you are there yourself in the middle of it all, and you seem almost the centre of it. You laugh and talk with every one and seem quite fond of them. Why should it be good for you to be there and bad for me?" Maude ended her speech by blushing hotly, afraid that she had been too outspoken, but Rowena smiled upon her reassuringly. "I dare say I may seem inconsistent to you, but I am there for a purpose—and I want to help Mrs. Burke all I can. I know her better than you do, and know that her empty forlorn time will come, when she will see that this time has been all froth and bubble. I want to be with her then, for she will need help. And I do want you not to make the mistake she did when she was a young girl. She threw away her confidence—she knew she did it—she threw away all her hopes and ideals, for the kind of life she is leading now. You can't have both, Maude dear, and what you throw away is sometimes very difficult to get back again. Don't you do as she did, for those who are with her most, know she isn't a happy woman. And I shall never rest till I see her with her discarded treasures once again." Maude was visibly impressed. She slipped her hand into Rowena's, and squeezed it. "You are so good. I oughtn't to have spoken so. I see that people like you, and of course you do them good, just as you do me. I always want to be good after leaving you." "My dear Maude, don't set me up on a pedestal. Do you know that two years ago I was a godless heathen? and then gradually I began to see beauty in things I had scorned before. I don't know how I did it, but I was gently and surely drawn into quite another environment. It sounds mystical, doesn't it? I came to see what a wonderful creed we have as Christians, and I came to know the Founder of our creed. You have grown up in that atmosphere. Don't try to leave it, I beseech you. Now I'm not going to preach any more, tell me about this sick woman."