In winter we embroidered for missionary bazaars; in summer we spent the days in a quiet, walled garden.

It was all very peaceful, but I grew restless; and when I heard that my father's health was failing I felt that I must go to him.

My aunts were grieved and alarmed, but they said they dare not hinder me if I thought it my duty." Stirred by troubled memories and perhaps encouraged by the sympathy he showed, she had spoken on impulse without reserve, and Blake listened with pity.

The girl, brought up, subject to wholesome Puritanical influences, in such surroundings as she had described, must have suffered a cruel shock when suddenly plunged into the society of the rakes and gamblers who frequented her father's flat.
"Could you not have gone back when you were no longer needed ?" he asked.
"No," she said; "it would not have been fair.

I had changed since I left my aunts.