The girl withdrew into solitary reading and thinking; grew ever more afraid of the world; and by degrees sought more of her aunt's confidence, feeling that here was a soul that had long since attained to the peace which she was vainly seeking.
But it was with effort that Miss Bygrave brought herself to speak to another of her form of faith.

After that Christmas night when she addressed Maud for the first time on matters of religion, she had said no second word; she waited the effect of her teaching, and the girl's spontaneous recurrence to the subject.

There was something in the very air of the still, chill house favourable to ascetic gravity.

A young girl, living under such circumstances, must either pine away, eating her own heart, or become a mystic, and find her daily food in religious meditation.
Only when her niece was seventeen years old did Miss Bygrave speak to her of worldly affairs.

Her own income, she explained, was but just sufficient for their needs, and would terminate upon her death; had Maud thought at all of what course she would choose when the time for decision came?
Naturally, only one thing could suggest itself to the girl's mind, and that was to become a teacher.