"I don't know, I am sure. Somehow a bazaar generally realises more money, and it gives so many people an opportunity of helping. I have promised to supply a stock of knitted goods for babies. If I were you, I would give them your help, Juliet. I think you would come to take an interest in the thing. It would be a change for you. And those Misses Brown seem to be nice girls."
"Nice girls, mother! The younger one must be ten years older than I am."
"She can hardly be thirty yet, dear," replied Mrs. Tracy. "But there are few nice girls of your age here. That is why Mrs. Staines is anxious to secure your services. She said you would be quite an acquisition."
"Very flattering, I am sure," said Juliet, feeling more and more dislike to the idea as it was unfolded to her, "but don't you try to bamboozle me, mother dear."
"My dear child, I would not for the world persuade you into anything that you would not like," protested Mrs. Tracy. "The bazaar will not be held till the end of June or some time in July. They hope Lady Ernestine Whitehouse will consent to open it. And Mrs. Staines expects to have many friends staying in the neighbourhood then who will come to it. It promises to be a lively affair."
"Oh, too lively by half!" groaned Juliet. "Well, I must think about it before I decide."
She turned and went slowly from the room and upstairs to her pretty bedroom, with windows looking both south and west. The westward one commanded a charming view of the sea. As Juliet looked through it now, she saw the sun sinking in golden glory towards the waves. She went nearer, and stood leaning against the sash as she fixed her eyes on the glowing vision.
She gave it but a divided attention. Her mind was full of troubled thought. She saw that her mother was desirous that she should interest herself in the bazaar, but she had no inclination to do so. She was equally reluctant to become a recognised singer in the little church. She shrank from putting herself forward in any way. She did not want people to notice her. She hated the idea of producing a sensation now as much as she had formerly loved it. She had set herself so strenuously to seek the opposite of her former aim that the very idea of self-exaltation had grown hateful to her, and she could have sincerely uttered the quaint prayer, "From the unhappy desire of becoming great, good Lord, deliver me!"
Yet she could not truly have said that she was satisfied with the life she now led. She had begun to yearn for a wider outlook on life, a closer link of mutual service and sympathy with her day and generation. She had doubts whether it were right to continue the narrow, isolated existence which she had fervently embraced as the best means of mortifying her baser, clamorous self.
She suspected it was cowardice which made her so shrink from society. What did she fear? Must the mistake which had caused her such keen remorse stain and cloud all her future? She could never forget it; but might she not hope that for others it had sunk beneath the waters of oblivion? Was its shadow likely to overwhelm her in a new circle of acquaintance? Need she fear that in this remote place she would meet anyone acquainted with that dark episode of her past? Surely, should she meet with such, they might forgive her now.