who has not loved me!"
Tears rose thickly into her eyes. "I am always laying my heart down for
some man to trample on!" She glanced toward Mr. McCollom (he who was six
feet tall and handsome), a little smile trembled on her lips. I caught
her fingers on a swift impulse and squeezed them, she squeezed back
answeringly; we understood each other, she was casting her heart down
again, unasked. Her eyes came back to me. "Yours is the best way, but I'm
too old to learn now, I shall have to go on seeking--always seeking!"

"And finding, surely finding!" I answered, honestly, for I could not
imagine anyone resisting her.

"Do you think so?" she said, eagerly; then, rather sadly, she added:
"Still it would be nice to be sought once, instead of always seeking."

Poor woman! Charming actress as she was, she did not exaggerate in
declaring she was always casting her heart before someone. She married
Mr. McCollom, and lived with him in adoring affection till death took
him.

The last time I saw her she was my guest here at "The Pines," and as I
fastened a great hibiscus flower above her ear, in Spanish fashion, she
remarked:

"How little you have changed in all these years! I'll wager your heart is
without a scar, while if you could only see mine," she laughed, "it's
like an old bit of tinware--so battered, and bent, and dented!"

CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH

Through Devotion to my Friend, I Jeopardize my Reputation--I Own a Baby
on Shares--Miss Western's Pathetic Speech.

I had at that time a friend--a rare possession that. "The ideal of
friendship," says Madame Switchine, "is to feel as one while remaining
two," which is a precise description of the condition of mind and feeling
of Mrs. Mollie Ogden and myself. She did not act, but her husband did,
and I saw her every night, nearly every morning, and when work permitted
we visited one another in the afternoons. There was but one kind of cake
on the market that I liked, and that cake, with coffee, was always
offered for my refreshment when I was her guest. When she was mine the
festal board was furnished forth with green tea, of which she was
inordinately fond, and oysters stewed in their own can and served in two
mugs; the one announcing, in ostentatious gold letters, that I was "a
good girl," was naturally at the service of my guest, while the plain
stone-china affair, from the toilet-table, answered my purposes. With
what happy eagerness we prepared for those absurd