"I wonder why Dr. Bryant didn't like your mother to marry papa," Lettice conjectured dreamily. "Did anybody mind our mother marrying him?" "People sometimes take fancies—unreasonable fancies. Dr. Bryant was always strong in his dislikes, I have been told. Mind, Lettice, you know now all that there is any need for you to know. You are not to ask any more questions, and you are never to discuss the matter with my uncle." "No." The word came slowly, and Lettice's eyes widened into a thoughtful gaze, her needle lying neglected. She had a somewhat childish look for her fifteen years; and her small-featured pale face scarcely told of the firm nerves or indomitable pluck of her brother and half-sister. Yet it was a happy face, contented and cheery: and the girl, if of more sensitive make than they, was capable of resolute effort, and of patient endurance, though as yet she had not been greatly called upon for the exercise of either. Cecilia Anderson was a woman of remarkable force and courage. She had been practically a mother to Felix and Lettice, since the death of their own mother, when Lettice was only six months old: and from the death of their father—hers and theirs also—whereby they were at once reduced from ease to penury, she had borne up with unfailing determination. Not only by her exertions had she made a home for the two children, and given them thus far a good education: but she had also paid all her father's debts—not large, perhaps, in actual amount, but very large in proportion to Cecilia's means. She knew no rest till they were liquidated: and she would have done twice as much in love to her father's memory. He had not been a gifted man, or an estimable man, or a man of high principle: but he had had the power to make all women believe in him. Cecilia was cultivated in no common degree; thoroughly well taught, and well read: a good French and German scholar: a good musician: a passable artist: and with these powers she possessed also an unlimited capacity for work. No doubt her handsome face, her refined and dignified manner, helped her to make way. Until recently, her time had been for years more than full: and the incessant toil had been sufficiently repaid. But of late, a change had come. She had begun slowly to drop out of the ranks of the always employed, and to find large gaps in her time, once entirely occupied. Competition in a place like Brighton is very keen: and perhaps she was wearing out physically under the long strain, not able to teach so well. She had often sat up for hours at night, correcting exercises, when her days were over-full. And even in her holidays, she had known no rest with incessant holiday-engagements. Nature will in time take its revenge.