k was
always with her, poor Mark! so much more in her heart dead than living!
But to-day his memory seemed only a part of the tender past; it was
toward the future that her heart turned; she felt young and strong and
full of hope.

In the new year Jim began to come pretty regularly to the settlement
house. Sometimes he stayed but for two minutes, never for more than ten,
and usually, even if Julia was out, he left some little gift for her, a
book or a magazine, flower seeds, or violets, or a box of candy. She
would glance up from the soiled and rumpled sewing of some small girl to
find Jim smiling at her from the stage door, or come back from her
little shopping round and have a moment's chat with him on the steps.
She grew more and more silent, more and more self-contained, but her
beauty deepened daily, and her eyes shone like blue stars.

"God, I will not believe it--I _cannot_ believe it!" said Julia, on her
knees, at night, her hands pressed tight against her eyes. "But I think
he is beginning to love me!" And she walked in a strange dazzle of
happiness, rejoicing in every sunny morning that, with its warmth and
blueness and distant soft whistles from the bay, seemed to promise the
spring, and rejoicing no less when rain beat against the windows of The
Alexander, and the children rushed in upon her at three o'clock with
raindrops in their hair and on their glowing cheeks. The convent garden,
in the February mornings, the assembly room, with late uncertain
sunlight checking its floor in the long afternoons, the Colonial
restaurant filled with lights and the odours of food at night, all these
familiar things seemed strangely new and thrilling, and the arrival of
the postman was, twice a day, a heart-shaking event.

In April Doctor Toland went on a fortnight's trip to Mexico, and took
his third daughter with him, in the undisguised hope of winning some
small share of her confidence, and convincing her of his own
disinterested affection. Two days later Barbara telephoned her aunt the
harrowing news of Sally's elopement with Keith Borroughs, and Miss
Toland went at once to Sausalito, taking Julia along.

They found the big house full of excitement. Richie was with his mother,
who had retired to her room and was tearful and hysterical; Ned and his
wife had gone back after Christmas to the country town, where he held a
small position under his father-in-law; and Jim was doing both his own
work and that of his foster f