CONTENTSBOOK FIRST--THE AGE OF FAITHCHAPTER PAGE I. Presents a Shameless Heroine 3 II. Poor Jane 30 III. A Start in Life 61 IV. Mirage 90 V. The New World 122 VI. The Old Serpent 148 VII. Motherhood 176BOOK SECOND--THE AGE OF KNOWLEDGE I. Disenchantment. 211 II. A Second Start in Life 241 III. Work 274 IV. The Dream and the Years 300 V. Success 331 VI. Discoveries 368 VII. Readjustments 406 VIII. The Test 444 IX. The Past 476 X. Dream and the Reality 501BOOK FIRSTTHE AGE OF FAITHCHAPTER IPRESENTS A SHAMELESS HEROINEAfter a day of rain the sun came out suddenly at five o'clock and threwa golden bar into the deep Victorian gloom of the front parlour. On thewindow-sill, midway between the white curtains, a pot of blue hyacinthsstood in a cracked china plate, and as the sunlight shone into the room,the scent of the blossoms floated to the corner where Gabriella waspatiently pulling basting threads out of the hem of a skirt. For aminute her capable hands stopped at their work, and raising her smoothdark head she looked compassionately at her sister Jane, who wassitting, like a frozen image of martyrdom, in the middle of the longhorsehair sofa. Three times within the last twelve months Jane had fledfrom her husband's roof to the protection of her widowed mother, a weakperson of excellent ancestry, who could hardly have protected a sparrowhad one taken refuge beneath her skirt. Twice before Mrs. Carr had weptover her daughter's woes and returned her, a sullen saint, to the armsof the discreetly repentant Charley; but to-day, while the four olderchildren were bribed to good behaviour with bread and damson preservesin the pantry, and the baby was contentedly playing with his rubber ringin his mother's arms, Gabriella had passionately declared that "Janemust never, never go back!" Nothing so dreadful as this had everhappened before, for the repentant Charley had been discovered makinglove to his wife's dressmaker, a pretty French girl whom Jane hadengaged for her spring sewing because she had more "style" than hadfallen to the austerely virtuous lot of the Carr's regular seamstress,Miss Folly Hatch. "I might have known she was too pretty to be good,"moaned Jane, while Mrs. Carr, in her willow rocking-chair by the window,wiped her reddened eyelids on the strip of cambric ruffling she washemming.