g Liza, reproachfully.

The village, too, seemed to be getting on surprisingly well without her.
The Housewives' League she had organized had made amazing strides during
her absence. It had elected a president and a secretary and was
governing itself according to Roberts' Rules of Order quite as capably
as it had been governed in the past by the Madam. It was even, thanks to
Jemima's recent activities in the neighborhood, beginning to discuss in
a shy and tentative manner the question of Votes for Women. Kate felt
that she had created a Frankenstein.

Nor was the problem of the negro element any longer hers to struggle
with alone. She had tried to meet it by starting among the colored
people of the village a Civic League, quiescent during the winter, but
coming to life each spring with garden-time, and progressing
enthusiastically through the summer to the culmination of prize-giving,
and a procession, with the prize-winners riding proudly at the front in
decorated carriages. Now she found that Philip's successor, a city-bred
young fellow trained in social service, had already taken the Civic
League in hand and had converted the colored school into a Neighborhood
House of the most approved pattern, where innocent entertainment might
be had on two nights out of the week, winter and summer. The effect upon
a gregarious, pleasure-loving race which, as John Wise has said, never
outgrows mentally the age of seventeen, was already apparent. Kate
wished humbly that she herself had thought of a Neighborhood House.

Gradually she came to the conclusion that she had outlived the
community's need of her. She, Kate Kildare, not yet forty, with energy
flowing back into her veins even as the sap was coming back into the
trees after their winter's rest, could find no outlet for it.

There was nothing to fill the endless days. She tried to resume her
long-neglected musical studies, but the piano was haunted for her now by
the silent voice of Jacqueline, and she turned from it at last in
despair. In this time of need, even books failed her. With her returning
vigor full upon her, she could not find the patience to sit for hours
poring over the thoughts of professional thinkers, or the imaginary
deeds of people who had never lived--she who had lived so hard, and
whose own thoughts came up aching out of her heart.

Mag's baby was her one occupation. Storm would have been indeed a dreary
place just then without Mag's parting legacy to