On her own side her sense of the girl's dependence was more than a pleasure; it operated as a definite reason when motives threatened to fail her.

She had said to herself that we must take our duty where we find it, and that we must look for it as much as possible.

Pansy's sympathy was a direct admonition; it seemed to say that here was an opportunity, not eminent perhaps, but unmistakeable.

Yet an opportunity for what Isabel could hardly have said; in general, to be more for the child than the child was able to be for herself.

Isabel could have smiled, in these days, to remember that her little companion had once been ambiguous, for she now perceived that Pansy's ambiguities were simply her own grossness of vision.