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CHAPTER XXXV.
THE LILY-MAID OF ASTOLAT.
"One pain is lessened by another's anguish,
One desperate grief cures with another's languish."
Romeo and Juliet.
"And when I learnt it at last, I shrieked, I sprang from my seat,
I wept and I kissed her hands, I flung myself down at her feet."
Tennyson, Charity.
"And I knew why we love and suffer,
I saw through what white lakes of fire
The souls of some mortals must tremble,
Before they are fit for the higher.
And the secret of living was loving,
And loving must ever be pain
Till He, by whose word came our being,
Shall summon that being again."
Australian Poets, Agnes Neale.
Some months had elapsed. The doctor, sad but steadfast, was occupied, happily for him, with plans for putting the affairs of his settlements on a permanent and self-governing basis. Hilda, subdued now, took special interest in the development of the Amazona community. Gwyneth directed her. Half her time the girl spent about the beautiful hill whence the consumptives looked out on all the land of promise that was ripening, but not for them. Her work was done, Gwyneth felt. The perfecting of it she left to Hilda and the friends who had assisted to establish the girls' colony. The strain imposed by concern for her father's absence, his
