"  Now  and  again,  not  without  a  break  in  her  voice,  she
would  say  she  hungered  for  the  old  days  of  simple  faith  and
certain  forelooking  to  the  land  that  is  very  far  off,  but  she
always  left  me  with  the  impression  that  instead  of  thinking
scorn  of  those  whose  faith  was  unshaken,  after  the  manner
of  some  who  have  broken  from  old  moorings,  she,  on  the
contrary,  honoured  those,  and  was  helped  by  them.
"  And  she  had  long  got  beyond  the  view  of  the  cynic,  and
only  desired  that,  in  the  light  that  is  unapproachable  to,  she
too  might  see  light.  If  I  were  asked  what  it  was  that  made
her  so  love  the  old  Crosthwaite  parish  and  church,  I  should
answer  it  was  because  here  her  early  thoughts  of  God  and
nature  came  back  with  each  returning  visit  in  strength  and
fulness,  and  she  felt  here  as  she  had  felt  in  the  old  days  of  her
girlhood's  opening  power.
"  I  think  what  struck  me  most  about  her  now  was  that
the  real  Mrs.  Lynn  Linton  was  not  the  Mrs.  Lynn  Linton  of
her  books  or  her  newspaper  and  magazine  articles  ;  that  how-
ever at  times  she  dipped  her  pen  in  gall,  she  kept  her  heart
and  her  tongue  when  in  communion  with  her  friends  free  of
all  bitterness."


CHAPTER   II
EARLY  YEARS  (Continued)

JUST  as  every  moment  in  time  is  the  "  conflux  of  two
eternities,"  so  every  child  is  to  itself  the  centre  of  the
whole  universe.  By  some,  perhaps  the  majority,  the
fact  is  never  intensely  realised.  To  others  there  comes  a
sudden  and  severe  attack  of  self- consciousness,  which  as
often  as  not  exhibits  itself  in  bitter  resentment  against
authority  and  a  painful  and  unbeautiful  self-assertiveness.
