and days and weeks at which she hinted when she had spoken of the tragedy of life which by inference was her own tragedy: ‘to love and to be helpless. To wait, and wait, and wait, with your heart all aflame!’

Stephen recognised her aunt’s concern for her health in time to protect herself from the curiosity of her loving-kindness. Her youth and readiness and adaptability, and that power of play-acting which we all have within us and of which she had her share, stood to her. With but little effort, based on a seeming acquiescence in her aunt’s views, she succeeded in convincing the old lady that her incipient feverish cold had already reached its crisis and was passing away. But she had gained certain knowledge in the playing of her little part. All this self-protective instinct was new; for good or