larity of open and closed shutters.

There was the quiet rumble of a carriage in the street, and Clara Leeds
leaned forward, her eyes following the vehicle until to look further
would have necessitated leaning out of the window. There were two women
in the carriage, both young and soberly dressed. To certain eyes they
might have appeared out of place in a carriage, and yet, somehow, it was
obvious that it was their own. Clara Leeds resumed her work, making
quick, jerky stitches.

"Clara Leeds," she murmured, as if irritated. She frowned and then
sighed. "If only--if only it was something else; if it only had two
syllables...." She put aside her work and went and stood before the
mirror of her dresser. She looked long at her face. It was fresh and
pretty, and her blue eyes, in spite of their unhappy look, were clear
and shining. She fingered a strand of hair, and then cast critical
sidelong glances at her profile. She smoothed her waist-line with a
movement peculiar to women. Then she tilted the glass and regarded the
reflection from head to foot.

"Oh, what is it?" she demanded, distressed, of herself in the glass. She
took up her work again.

"They don't seem to care how they look and ... they do wear shabby
gloves and shoes." So her thoughts ran. "But they are the Rockwoods and
they don't have to care. It must be so easy for them; they only have to
visit the Day Nursery, and the Home for Incurables, and some old, poor,
sick people. They never have to meet them and ask them to dinner. They
just say a few words and leave some money or things in a nice way, and
they can go home and do what they please." Clara Leeds's eyes rested
unseeingly on the house opposite. "It must be nice to have a rector ...
he is such an intellectual-looking man, so quiet and dignified; just the
way a minister should be, instead of like Mr. Copple, who tries to be
jolly and get up sociables and parlor meetings." There were tears in the
girl's eyes.

A tea-bell rang, and Clara went down-stairs to eat dinner with her
father. He had just come in and was putting on a short linen coat.
Clara's mother was dead. She was the only child at home, and kept house
for her father.

"I suppose you are all ready for the lawn-tennis match this afternoon?"
said Mr. Leeds to his daughter. "Mr. Copple said you were going to play
with him. My! that young man is up to date. Think of a preacher getting
up a lawn-tennis club! Why, when I was a young man that wou