out a broom, you know. I wish you were a little
less silly, Anna, and a little more grateful. Most girls would jump at
the splendid opportunity you've got now of marrying, and taking up a
position of your own. You talk a great deal of stuff about being
independent, and when you get the chance, and I do all I can to help
you, you fly into a passion and want to sweep a crossing. Really," added
Susie, twitching her shoulder, "you might remember that it isn't all
roses for me either, trying to get some one else's daughter married."

"Of course it isn't all roses," said Anna, leaning against the
mantelpiece and looking down at her with perplexed eyebrows. "I am very
sorry for you. I wish you weren't so anxious to get rid of me. I wish I
could do something to help you. But you know, Susie, you haven't taught
me a trade. I can't set up on my own account unless you'll give me a
last present of a broom, and let me try my luck at the nearest crossing.
The one at the end of the street is badly kept. What do you think if I
started there?" What answer could anyone make to such folly?

By the time she was twenty-four, nearly all the girls who had come out
when she did were married, and she felt as though she were a ghost
haunting the ball-rooms of a younger generation. Disliking this feeling,
she stiffened, and became more and more unapproachable; and it was at
this period that she invented excuses for missing most of the functions
to which she was invited, and began to affect a simplicity of dress and
hair arrangement that was severe. Susie's exasperation was now at its
height. "I don't know why you should be bent on making the worst of
yourself," she said angrily, when Anna absolutely refused to alter her
hair.

"I'm tired of being frivolous," said Anna. "Have you an idea how long
those waves took to do? And you know how Hilton talks. It all gets
whisked up now in two minutes, and I'm spared her conversation."

"But you are quite plain," cried Susie. "You are not like the same girl.
The only thing your best friend could say about you now is that you look
clean."

"Well, I like to look clean," said Anna, and continued to go about the
world with hair tucked neatly behind her ears; her immediate reward
being an offer from a clergyman within the next fortnight.

Peter Estcourt was even more surprised than his wife that Anna had not
made a good match years before. Of course she had no money, but she was
a pretty girl of good famil