The Shelleys’ change had been so sudden; in a few hours it was all settled, and Jack gone to America, who, earlier in the day, had been shearing sheep, as though that was to be the only anxiety in his shepherd’s life. After he was gone they were at first so occupied with nursing Charlie they had scarcely time to realise all that had happened on that June morning; but in a few weeks Charlie was quite well again, and then they resumed their former lives. But it was all different now; Charlie took Jack’s place as under-shepherd, and went with his father to the downs every day instead of Jack. Fairy spent a great deal of her time at the rectory, for now Jack was gone she felt her anomalous position, for, fond as she was of the shepherd and his wife and of Charlie, she could not help feeling there was a gulf between them and her, which, in Jack’s case, did not exist, for intellectually he was her superior. As she grew older, Fairy began to realise that there was another difference between her and her foster parents, besides the difference of education, for she was a lady in thought and feeling as well as by birth, and, thanks to Mr. Leslie, by education. Not that there was anything to jar upon her feelings in John Shelley or his wife; for simple, honest folk as they were, there was nothing vulgar about them; and it is vulgarity which jars against a refined mind; but all the same there was a difference between them and her, a difference she had not felt as a child, but which, now she was growing into a woman, pressed upon her.