ousehold duties, as if in interviews with grocery-man and butcher,
with cook and laundress, she could forget that her mother had written
her, that the letter lay up-stairs awaiting her.

She would not read it, she assured herself; but all the while she knew
that she would, and when the time came she opened it quietly and read
it through. Then she put it in its envelope and threw it from her
again across the room, and sat immovable, the lines of her young face
setting as though by some steeling process. Suddenly she caught sight
of her face in the glass. On it was the look of Uncle Austen.

She sprang up and, dragging forth her cloak and hat and furs, fled
from the house. She must turn to some one, she must get away from the
horror that was upon her. She would go to Aunt Harriet.

It was a frosty day and a light fall of snow was on the pavements. She
met Dr. Ransome and Emily Carringford strolling along as though it
were summer. She had introduced him to Emily, and one would say she
had done him a good turn. She smiled as they called to her from across
the street. He admired Emily and it looked as if Emily--but, then,
Emily sparkled and glowed for any man, even for Uncle Austen.

She saw Georgy wave his hat gaily from the platform of a street-car
and look as though he meant to swing off and join her. She was seeing
a good deal of him these days. She shook her head and pointed with her
muff, and a moment later turned in at the Infirmary gate. She had
walked rapidly and felt better somehow. The Major was daily growing
stronger, though the fear was that he might never walk again, but,
rather than accept this verdict, he and Aunt Harriet were going East
for advice or, if need be, to Paris.

Paris! The horror surged back upon her. She stopped short in her very
turning to close the gate and stood engrossed with the misery of it,
for it was from Paris her mother had written to say she was coming to
her.

"I have reached the end of my money, ma chere," she wrote, "as you
come into yours, which Austen, being a Blair, will have cared for. I
will teach you to love life, now that you are grown. When you were a
child you were impossible, you disconcerted and judged me, but it is
unfair to let you taste life according to Blair seasoning only. So
write me, ma fille, mon enfant, of your whereabouts, in the care of
your Uncle Randolph in Washington, for I follow this steamer across."

And then, as though her mood had changed: "In