great-grandfather--tendered for
it--not that he got the job--but he was very old."

"Did he now? No, I don't. But I dare say I was in London then."

"I dare say that would be it."

"Yes," said Sarah, turning to Hilda once more, "that's just what Mr.
Cannon says. He says it isn't as if I didn't know what London is.... But
it's such a long time ago!" She glanced at Caroline as if for sympathy.

"Come, come, Sarah!" Caroline protested stoutly, and yet with a care for
Sarah's sensitiveness. "It isn't so long ago as all that!"

"It seems so long," said Sarah, reflective; and her mouth worked
uneasily. Then, after a pause: "He's so set on it!"

"Set on what? On your going to London?"

"Yes."

"And why not?"

"Well, I don't know whether I could--"

"Paw!" scoffed Caroline lightly and flatteringly. "You're younger than I
am, and I'm not going to have anyone making out that I'm getting old.
Now do finish that bit of cake."

"No, thank you, Caroline. I really couldn't."

"Not but what I should be sorry enough to lose you," Caroline concluded.
"There's no friends like the old friends."

"Ah! No!" Sarah thickly muttered, gazing with her watery eyes at a spot
on the white diaper.

"Hilda, do turn down that there gas a bit," said Mrs. Lessways sharply
and self-consciously. "It's fizzing." And she changed the subject.

IV

With a nervous exaggeration of solicitude Hilda sprang to the gas-jet.
Suddenly she was drenched in the most desolating sadness. She could not
bear to look at Miss Gailey; and further, Miss Gailey seemed unreal to
her, not an actual woman, but an abstract figure of sorrow that fancy
had created. A few minutes previously Hilda had been taking pride in the
tact and the enterprise of George Cannon, who possessed a mysterious
gift of finding an opportunity for everybody who needed it. He had set
Hilda on her feet; and he was doing the same for his half-sister, and
with such skilful diplomacy that Miss Gailey was able to pretend to
herself and to others that George Cannon, and not Sarah Gailey, was the
obliged person. But now Hilda saw Sarah Gailey afraid to go to London,
and George Cannon pushing her forward with all the ruthless strength of
his enterprising spirit. And the sight was extraordinarily,
incomprehensibly tragic. Sarah Gailey's timorous glance seemed to be
saying: "I am terrified to go. It isn't beyond my strength--it's beyond
my spirit. But I shall have to go, and I shall have to seem