Only by thus working hard could she keep herself, her husband, and daughter, in due touch with all the different movements going on.

And that the touch might be as due as possible, she had a little headache nearly every day.

For the dread of letting slip one movement, or of being too much taken with another, was very real to her; there were so many people who were interesting, so many sympathies of hers and Stephen's which she desired to cultivate, that it was a matter of the utmost import not to cultivate any single one too much.

Then, too, the duty of remaining feminine with all this going forward taxed her constitution.

She sometimes thought enviously of the splendid isolation now enjoyed by Blanca, of which some subtle instinct, rather than definite knowledge, had informed her; but not often, for she was a loyal little person, to whom Stephen and his comforts were of the first moment.