Her dear, dear father was taken from her, the one being she loved in all the world, the one who had been everything to her since she had lost her mother, her darling companion as well as parent. And as though to mock at her grief she had learned that day for the first time from the lawyer's lips that she was penniless. Owing to the great bank failure, her father's money had melted away into thin air; and her home, the dear old Abbey House, must pass into other hands, and be sold at once to meet the demands of her father's creditors. To-night was hers--to-night she could wander through the rooms, and take a last farewell walk round the gardens and park, and touch as she had touched the friend of her childhood, the fine old cedar which had silently watched many generations of Woodfords seated under its sheltering boughs. With tender, lingering fingers she had pressed the smooth trunk, and then broken a tiny piece of the beautiful evergreen, and put it among her own personal treasures. It was that which lay in her hand now, and upon which the fast-falling tears dropped, as she said good-bye to the happiness of the old home, so soon to pass into the possession of strangers. She covered her face, while silent sobs shook her, in the sorrow of those moments. Presently she grew calm again, and, gazing through the window of her room at those bright worlds which canopy our earth above, her lips moved, and her voice whispered to the One Who knew all her trouble and understood: "Father in Heaven, help me, Thy child, to do Thy will wherever Thou seest fit to send me." There was no outward answer to that prayer, but the answer was speeding to her then, and strength to prepare her for the difficult days to come. CHAPTER II OAKLANDS "Oh, I wish the train would be quick," said a small child, addressing an old man-servant who stood rather anxiously guarding her, as she stamped impatiently up and down upon the platform. "What makes it so long, James? I want to see her--because I shall know directly if she's nice; if she isn't, I'll be naughty every day, and make her just as unhappy as ever I can, and then she'll go away like all the others have. I told daddy so this morning." "I expect you'll like her, miss," answered the man, with a grim smile, as he gazed with affectionate amusement at the spoilt child in front of him. "If she's nasty, I'll hate her--so there." "Come, come, missy, don't talk like that," he interposed. "Yes, I shall--look! there's the train coming, the signal has gone down, now let's see, James, who can find her first; I feel sure she'll be horrid, and have an ugly old bonnet on." The train steamed into the station, puffing and snorting vehemently as it came to a standstill, and in a few minutes the carriages had emptied themselves of their passengers.