“That is really the reason I’ve been to Brigham,” Nancy said. “I thought that I ought to give my husband’s relations the opportunity of looking after Letizia. Not because I want to shirk the responsibility,” she added quickly. “Indeed I would hate to lose her, but I did feel that she ought to have the chance of being brought up quietly. My own mother died when I was very young, and my father who is on the stage allowed me to act a great deal as a child, so that really I didn’t go to school till I was over twelve, and it wasn’t a very good school, because I was living in Dublin with an aunt who hadn’t much money. Indeed I never really learnt anything, and when I was sixteen I went back to the stage for good. I’m only twenty-four now. I look much older, I think.” “I shouldn’t have said that you were more than that,” the nun replied. “But how terribly sad for you, my dear, to have lost your husband so young. Many years ago before I became a nun I was engaged to be married to a young Italian, and he died. That was in Italy, and that is why I still always think of Italy as the loveliest country and of Italian as the most beautiful language. But you were telling me about your relations in Brigham.” Nancy gave an account of her visit, and particularly of the interview with Letizia’s great-grandmother. “I think the old lady was quite right. I cannot imagine that bright little sleeping creature was intended to be brought up in such surroundings. Besides, I don’t think it is right to expose a Catholic child to Protestant influences. Far better that you should keep her with you.” “Yes, but suppose I cannot get an engagement? As a matter of fact, I have only a pound or two left, and the prospect is terrifying me. I feel that I ought to have gone on acting at Greenwich. But to act on the very stage on which my husband had died in my arms! I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t have done it.”