Alexina did not open her heart to Harriet after
all, and the aunt went away next day without knowing.

Yet Harriet influenced the girl in her decision.

Alexina, standing at her window, watched a sparrow tugging at some
morsel that had fallen upon the snow and essaying to fly upward and
away with it. She was lonesome; the house was so big; it seemed so
empty. She was thinking about Aunt Harriet, who was giving her
strength out to some one, who had opened her arms to Louise and the
babies, whose days were full of thought and planning, and through
whose eyes shone something never there before.

Alexina left the window and re-read the postscript of her letter. "In
any case I shall not trouble you long. It is my lungs, they tell me.
It is a curious sensation, may you never know it, having your
furniture seized. Le bon Dieu and Celeste have stood between me and
much."

It was to her uncle after all that Alexina went with the matter that
night. He was in the parlour reading and laid down his paper to give
attention. The substance of the letter heard, the two perpendicular
lines between his brow relaxed, for it was a case of his judgment
being justified, and a man likes to feel he has been right.

"It is what I expected," he said, "only it has been longer coming. She
has her father's people in Washington, she has no claim on you." He
lifted his paper.

"But--" said Alexina.

He lowered it and waited.

Her mouth grew set. He always made her stubborn. Fingering the
upholstery of his chair, she looked at him, though it took courage to
look at Austen Blair under some circumstances. She found herself
suddenly disposed to defend her mother. "But if I feel a claim, Uncle
Austen? I wanted to tell you I think I ought to write to her to come."

"Come where?" asked Austen Blair.

To be sure--where could she write her to come? There fell a silence.

Then he spoke, and curtly. "In three months you will be of age, a fact
which no doubt your mother has remembered. Until then I forbid it;
after that it is your affair. In the interim, it has been my
intention, and I meant to say as much to you, to make you acquainted
with your affairs. I had expected you to live on in my house. Under
the conditions you propose you will, of course, make your own
arrangements."

Alexina, listening, looked at him. One would have said tears were
welling. Had he raised his eyes to hers, put out a hand--

But he returned to his paper.

Her cheeks