responsibility was born on the 18th of August, 1881. From what her doctor could tell her there could be no doubt that if that were not actually the child’s birthday, her birth must have occurred within the margin of a day or two on either side of it.

[37]

The child, as she grew up, was not a lovable child; and long before the fair-haired baby had reached that stage of lankiness, when, a few days after they were new, her frocks always seemed to shrink above her knees, emphasising the spindle legs which[38] needed so little of that emphasis, the girl was a dark-haired little fury, with a perfectly ungovernable temper.

[38]

Increasing years, and the chronic irritability of a constant invalid, had all helped to diminish the patience of Lady Stableford; and a child of the temper and temperament of the wayward Evangeline needs an endless patience in her bringing up, which patience Lady Stableford had ceased to possess. The result was that as time went on the child was left more and more under the care and control of servants, none too wisely chosen, and such affection as Lady Stableford had originally had for the lonesome little baby had degenerated into the loveless duty to the child whose future she had taken into her own hands.

Her schooldays over, Evangeline came back to her home—a tall, aristocratic-looking beauty; and, in the hope of companionship, Lady Stableford turned again to the[39] girl. But it was then too late. Of duty the girl knew nothing, and the keen memory of her youthful mind matched against any present show of affection which was made to her, the vivid recollections of the scoldings and punishments of her nursery days. The two women were out of sympathy. The old lady ceased her efforts, the girl never attempted to make any.

[39]

The pair lived together in the same house. The girl’s life was one constant rebellion against the irritable, irritated, and irritating attempts at her own control made by the elder woman.

Bored to extinction by the life she was apparently expected to lead, exasperated by the querulous exactions of the irritable old lady, driven inexorably by the exuberance of youth and the nervous restlessness of her own excitable temperament, Evangeline had made up her mind that it was a necessity to her that she should find occupation[40] in a working career. The girl was probably right, but it by no means followed that her choice had been made in the right 

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