“There’s nothing to laugh at,” she said. “I made a plain statement. In the ordinary course of life social visits are not exchanged between the ladies of the Manor and the girls of the farm; but in this case, and if you will save me the trouble of explaining how it is that I go... and yet I don’t know that you can explain it or that I can explain it... oh, you had better not try to explain anything.” “Is there anything to explain?” he asked. “There is a great deal to explain, but nothing that can be explained,” she replied. “I will be pleased to pay Mrs. Wingfield a visit. That’s all that need be said on the matter. I am sure that she will be very nice to me, and I know that I will be as nice to her as I can be to any one. Haven’t I always been nice to you?” “Nice--nice?” he repeated. “That’s hardly the word. You have been nicer to me than any one I ever met What have you been to me? There’s a word that just describes it, if I could only find it. Guardian--no--no--some other word?” “Pupil-teacher?” she suggested with some more demure humour. He paid no attention to her. He was not in the humour for humour at all. “I know the word, if I could only find it,” he said, musingly. “By George! I have it--good angel--that’s the word. You have been my good angel. You have indeed.” “That was a word worth waiting for,” she said gravely. “I don’t think that there is any word that I should like better to hear any man apply to me than that word--good angel. It simply means, of course, good influence; and that is woman’s mission in the world of men; it is not so much to do things herself as to influence men in the doing of things. And when you come to think of it, woman has played a rather important part in the history of the world by adopting this line. She hasn’t actually done much herself, but she has been a tremendous power for good or evil in her influence upon man. That is the sort of woman I should like to be--an influence for good.” “A good angel--you have been my good angel,” he said in a low voice. “You have plucked me by the hair of my head out of--out of--of--well, out of myself; and--if you knew what I think of you--if you knew what I hope--what my heart is set on--what----”