iative were sapped from her character. Sometimes, during such days
or weeks of loneliness, she would think of her mother's words, uttered
so often in the old years at the rectory: "There isn't any pleasure in
making things unless there's somebody to make them for."

Beyond the window, the November day, which had been one of placid
contentment for her, was slowly drawing to its close. The pale red line
of an autumn sunset lingered in the west above the huddled roofs of the
town, while the mournful dusk of evening was creeping up from the earth.
A few chilled and silent sparrows hopped dejectedly along the bared
boughs of the young maple tree in front of the house, and every now and
then a brisk pedestrian would pass on the concrete pavement below.
Inside, a cheerful fire burned in the grate, and near it, on one end of
the chintz-covered couch, lay Oliver's present to her--a set of black
bear furs, which he had brought down with him from New York. Turning
away from the window, she slipped the neck-piece over her shoulders, and
as she did so, she tried to stifle the wonder whether he would have
bought them--whether even he would have remembered the date--if Harry
had not been with him. Last year he had forgotten her birthday--and
never before had he given her so costly a present as this. They were
beautiful furs, but even she, with her ignorance of the subtler arts of
dress, saw that they were too heavy for her, that they made her look
shrunken and small and accentuated the pallor of her skin, which had the
colour and the texture of withered rose-leaves. "They are just what
Jenny has always wanted, and they would be so becoming to her. I wonder
if Oliver would mind my letting her take them back to Bryn Mawr after
the holidays?"

If Oliver would mind! The phrase still remained after the spirit which
sanctified it had long departed. In her heart she knew--though her
happiness rested upon her passionate evasion of the knowledge--that
Oliver had not only ceased to mind, that he had even ceased to notice
whether she wore his gifts or gave them to Jenny.

A light step flitted along the hall; her door opened without shutting
again, and Lucy, in a street gown made in the princess style, hurried
across the room and turned a slender back appealingly towards her.

"Oh, mother, please unhook me as fast as you can. The Peytons are going
to take me in their car over to Richmond, and I've only a half hour in
which to get ready."

Th