I will say no more.--With fondest love, your affectionate AUNT HARRIET." "H'm!" said Mrs. Stoddart, "and so the only one of the trio whom you could tolerate is the one who has died. They have killed her between them. That is sufficiently obvious. And what do you think, Annette, of this extremely cold-blooded suggestion that you should live for others?" "I think it is worth a trial," said Annette, looking gravely at her. "It will have the charm of novelty, at any rate. And I haven't made such a great success of living for myself so far." Mrs. Stoddart did not answer. Even she, accustomed as she was to them by now, always felt a tremor when those soft veiled violet eyes were fixed upon her. "Sweetest eyes were ever seen," she often said to herself. Annette went on: "I see that I have been like the man in the parable. When I was bidden to the feast of life I wanted the highest seat, I took it as my right. I was to have everything--love, honour, happiness, rank, wealth. But I was turned out, as he was. And I was so angry that I flung out of the house in a rage. If Dick had not stopped me at the door I should have gone away altogether. The man in the parable behaved better than that. He took with shame the lowest seat. I must do like him--try and find the place intended for me, where I _shan't_ be cast out." "Well, this is the lowest seat with a vengeance." "Yes, that is why I think it may be just what I can manage." "You are sure you are not doing this from a false idea of making an act of penance?" "No, directly I read the letters I thought I should like it. I wish now I had never left them. And I believe now that I have been away I could make a success of it." "I have no doubt you could, but----" "I should like to make a success of _something_, after being such a failure. And--and----" "And what, my child?" "I had begun to think there was no corner in the world for me, as if the Giver of the Feast had forgotten me altogether. And this looks as if He hadn't. I have often thought lately that I should like--if I could--to creep into some little place where I should not be thrust out, where there wouldn't be any more angels with flaming swords to drive me away." CHAPTER IX "Oh, is the water sweet and cool, Gentle and brown, above the pool? And laughs the immortal river still Under the mill, under the mill?" RUPERT BROOKE. I do not think you have ever heard of the little village of Riff in Lowshire, Reader, unless you were born and bred in it as I was. If you were, you believe of course that it is the centre of the world. But if you were not, it is possible you may have overlooked it in your scheme of life, or hurried past it in the train reading a novel, not even looking out as I have done a hundred times to catch a glimpse of it lying among its water meadows behind the willows.