Neither of the others spoke for a little. Then Agatha said, folding up her work, 'It may take in certain magazines, but I think she writes far better when she keeps to facts, not fancies.'
'It has a moral,' said Clare, looking away over the meadows.
'What is it?' asked Elfie, regarding her curiously.
'Failure is in self, not circumstances!'
After which slow denunciation, Clare also moved into the house, and when she reached her bedroom she murmured to herself, 'And I know all my unrest and discontent come from within me. It is not my surroundings. Miss Villars must be right.'
CHAPTER VIII
Entertaining a Stranger
'In all things
Mindful not of herself, but bearing the burden of others.'—Longfellow.
It was Sunday evening. Agatha sat by the drawing-room window, her Bible on her lap, and her thoughts far away from things of earth. All the rest of the household were at church, and she was enjoying the stillness around her. The sun was setting just behind the pine trees in the distance, and shedding a rosy glow upon their slender stems; the hush of night seemed to be falling on all Nature, and Agatha was so wrapped up in her thoughts, that she did not notice the figure of a man quietly and swiftly approaching the house. She was the more startled when a voice broke upon the stillness; and she looked up to see a man standing close outside the window.