igorously. "I couldn't stay out there one _week_,
myself, and have Aunt Sanna carrying on the way she does, planning a
thing, and forgetting it in two seconds, and yelling at the children one
day, and treating them to ice-cream the next! Why, the last time I went
out there Aunt Sanna was in bed, at eleven o'clock, because she felt
like reading, and she'd called off the housekeeping class for no reason
at all except that she didn't feel like it!"

"Yes, I know, I know," Mrs. Toland said, picking her way daintily across
Market Street. "But she has her own money, and I suppose she'll go her
own gait!" But she looked a little uneasy, and was silent for some
moments, busy with her own thoughts.

Long before this Julia's whereabouts had been discovered by her own
family, and by at least one of her friends, Mark Rosenthal. Mark walked
in upon her one Sunday afternoon, when she had been about a month at The
Alexander. Miss Toland had gone for a few hours to Sausalito, and Julia
was alone, and had some leisure. She put on her hat, and she and Mark
walked through the noisy Sunday streets; everybody was out in the
sunshine, and saloons everywhere were doing a steady business.

"Evelyn told me where you were," Mark explained. Julia made a little
grimace of disapproval, and the man, watching her, winced.

"Are you so sorry to have me know?" he asked, a sword in his heart.

"Oh, it's not that, Mark! But"--Julia stammered--"but I only went home
to see grandma Thursday, and it struck me that Evelyn hadn't lost much
time!"

"Wouldn't you ever have written me?" Mark asked, his dark eyes caressing
her.

"Oh, of course I would. Only I wanted to get a start first. Why do you
laugh?" Julia broke off to ask offendedly.

"Just because I love you so, darling. Just because I've been hungry for
you all these weeks--and it's just ecstasy to be here!" Mark's eyes were
moist now, though he was still smiling. "You don't know it, but I just
_live_ to see you, Julie. I can't think of anything else. This--this new
job isn't going to make any difference about our marrying, is it,
darling?"

Julia surveyed a stretch of dirty street lined with dirty yet somewhat
pretentious houses. Women sat on drifts of newspapers on the steps,
white-stockinged children quarrelled in the hot, dingy dooryards.

"I wish you didn't care that way, Mark," she said, uncomfortably.

"Why, dearest?" he said eagerly. "Because I care more for you than you
do for me? I