CHAPTER XXI.
ON THE DARK BROW OF HELVELLYN.
While these plans were being settled, and while Lesbia's future was the all-absorbing subject of Lady Maulevrier's thoughts, Mary contrived to be happier than she had ever been in her life before.

It was happiness that grew and strengthened with every day; and yet there was no obvious reason for this deep joy.

Her life ran in the same familiar groove.

She walked and rode on the old pathways; she rowed on the lake she had known from babyhood; she visited her cottagers, and taught in the village school, just the same as of old.

The change was only that she was no longer alone; and of late the solitude of her life, the ever-present consciousness that nobody shared her pleasures or sympathised with her upon any point, had weighed upon her like an actual burden.