“I write to you now as my only relation, to tell you that I must find a situation as governess or companion to support my child, and to ask you if you will be good enough to act as reference to my employers, when I find them. “If you answer this at once, this address will find me, but if not, please write care May’s Employment Office, for my lease of this house expires at the end of this week, and I do not know yet where I can go. “You have never seen Ismay. She is sixteen now. I think her pretty, and I know her to be my only comfort. When I find a situation I shall send her back to her school as a pupil teacher, but the parting will be a hard one, and I have not yet found courage to tell her of it. “However, it must be; and I rely on your old kindness when I ask you to let me refer to you as to my fitness to undertake the charge of girls. “Your cousin, “HELEN TRELANE. “1 Colbourne Square, London.” It was a letter that had given its writer some trouble, but circumstances had rendered it a masterpiece. Could Helen Trelane have seen Sir Gaspard turn again to the few words in which she spoke sadly of the parting with her daughter she would have smiled in quiet triumph at the inspiration which had made her bait her nearly hopeless hook with love for her child. She had asked for so little, too; and there was nothing to let Sir Gaspard know that she meant him to do for her treble what she asked. “Poor girl, poor Helen!” he thought. “What a fate to have to earn her own living and be parted from her child. But if she is the woman I think her, I can save her from that--only I must see her first.” It seemed to Le Marchant that the finger of Providence was in Helen Trelane’s letter. Who would make a better guardian for Cristiane than his own cousin, a mother herself? She had said something about her ignorance of money matters, but he could leave Cristiane’s money so tied up that there would be no question of managing it. He wrote a short note, appointing a time to see Mrs. Trelane in London. Somehow his heart had lightened since reading that letter from another Le Marchant, who was pained and desperate about her only child. As he sealed his note he started, like a child caught in mischief, for there sounded an impatient tap at the door. It was Cristiane. And he was making plans for her he could not tell her, with his heart full of an agony she must not suspect. “Are you here, father? May I come in?” How sweet and full the girl’s voice sounded through the oak door! The man’s heart fairly turned in his breast as he rose and let her in. But his handsome face was quite calm as the girl put up her fresh cheek for his kiss; if his lip trembled under his fair mustache she was not woman enough to know it.