with spirits depressed to a point as low as any woman past fifty
cares to enjoy. She had reason to know that Mr. Dudley was not mistaken
about his symptoms, and that not many months could pass before that must
happen which he foresaw. He could find some relief in talking and even
in jesting about it, but she could only with difficulty keep herself
from an outburst of grief. She had every reason to feel keenly. To lose
one's oldest friends is a trial that human nature never accustoms itself
to bear with satisfaction, even when the loss does not double one's
responsibilities; but in this case Mrs. Murray, as she grew old, saw her
niece Esther about to come on her hands at the same time when a wild
girl from the prairie was on the road to her very door, and she had no
sufficient authority to control either of them. For a woman without
children of her own, to act this part of matron to an extemporized
girls' college might be praise-worthy, but could not bring repose of
mind or body.

Mrs. Murray was still wider awake to this truth when she went the next
day to the Grand Central Station to wait for the arrival of her Colorado
orphan. The Chicago express glided in as gracefully and silently as
though it were in quite the best society, and had run a thousand miles
or so only for gentle exercise before dining at Delmonico's and passing
an evening at the opera. Among the crowd of passengers who passed out
were several women whose appearance gave Mrs. Murray a pang of fear, but
at length she caught sight of one who pleased her fastidious eye. "I
hope it is she," broke from her lips as the girl came towards her, and a
moment later her hope was gratified. She drew a breath of relief that
made her light-hearted. Whatever faults the girl might have, want of
charm was not among them. As she raised her veil, the engine-stoker,
leaning from his engine above them, nodded approval. In spite of dust
and cinders, the fatigue and exposure of two thousand miles or so of
travel, the girl was fresh as a summer morning, and her complexion was
like the petals of a sweetbrier rose. Her dark blue woollen dress,
evidently made by herself, soothed Mrs. Murray's anxieties more
completely than though it had come by the last steamer from the best
modiste in Paris.

"Is it possible you have come all the way alone?" she asked, looking
about with lurking suspicion of possible lovers still to be revealed.

"Only from Chicago," answered Catherine; "I stop