loss; the husband had come, what was even more kind, to do what he could for her, and to take her, if she consented, home. They had been more than kind. There had been no alloy of interested motives in that first impulse of generous compassion. It was good to think how frank, how full, how affectionate it had been. But--oh what a pity, what a pity, that these beautiful impulses and sincere moments of loving kindness should ever be shadowed by the cold shade of after-thoughts! From the moment when Mrs. Stanhope weeping received poor Evelyn into her arms, and lavished upon her the caresses and endearments of the most devoted friendship, to that in which Miss Ferrars became the unpaid governess, the useful dependent, and at the same time a member of the family who was apt to be _de trop_, who was not wanted between husband and wife, who was always there and could not be kept to her schoolroom and out of the way as an ordinary governess would have been--was unfortunately not very long. And indeed it was nobody’s fault. The consciousness that she was getting a great deal out of her friend, and that the tables were more or less turned, and it was Evelyn who was conferring the benefit, did not make it easier to Mrs. Stanhope to keep up the effusion and tenderness of the first welcome: and Captain Stanhope was often cross, troubled by harassments of his own, and wishing his wife’s friend anywhere but where she was, notwithstanding the fact that her presence was “everything for the children.” The situation had grown more and more strained, but there seemed no issue out of it: for it takes a great deal of money to take your passage from the centre of India to England, even when you know where to go and have your living assured when there. And Evelyn had nothing, neither a house to go to nor enough money for the journey. There were moments when she would have given anything in the world--which is a mere figure of speech, for she had nothing in the world to give--to be able to go away, and relieve her friends of her inconvenient presence; and there were moments when she felt that she was of too much use in the house to deprive them of her services, as if she grudged the expenditure. It was scarcely possible to imagine a position more painful and trying. It was nothing to her that her whole life was absorbed in the service of her friends and their children. Many women are able to make this kind of sacrifice and to stave off all thoughts of the future and what is to become of them after--with a heroic obedience to the Gospel precept of taking no thought for the morrow. But that was not all. For she was at the same time, as she felt, an inconvenience to the very people for whom she was spending her strength: they wanted her very room for other uses. They did not want her constantly between them spoiling their _tête à tête_--always to be considered when there was company, and to be invited with them when they went out. The very