hing. We have been a helpless lot. None of
us have ever blamed you or complained, not even Amy, baby as she is."

"I know it, dear, but it is better for you all to go."

"You have done all you could, always," Anna repeated, in a curious,
sullen fashion.

"Well, we will leave that. If Aunt Catherine takes you all this
winter, it will go hard if I do not pay her in some way later on; but
the point is now, you must all go."

Anna shook her head obstinately.

Carroll bent down and kissed her. "Good-night, dear," he said. "Try
to sleep."

"I wonder if those people are all gone."

"Yes, I think so. I heard Marie lock the door. Good-night."

Anna rose and threw her arms around her brother's neck. "Whatever
happens, you have got your old sister left," she said, with a soft
sob.

"Nobody is going to attach her for my debts," Carroll said, laughing,
but stroking her head fondly.

"No, she is not an available asset. I never will go, Arthur. The
others may do as they think best. I will not go."

"Not to-night, Anna, honey," Carroll said, as he went out of the room.

Anna Carroll, left alone, rose languidly, unfastened her red silk
gown, and let it fall in a rustling circle around her. She let down
her soft, misty lengths of hair, in which was a slight shimmer of
white, and brushed it. Standing before her dresser, using her
ivory-backed brush with long, even strokes, her reflected face showed
absolutely devoid of radiance. The light was out of it--the light of
youth, and, more than the light of youth, the light of that which
survives youth, even the soul itself. And yet there was in this face,
so unexpectant and quiescent that it gave almost the effect of
dulness, a great strength and charm which were the result of an
enduring grace of attitude towards all the stresses of life. Anna
Carroll carried about with her always, not for the furbishing of her
hair nor the embellishment of her complexion, but for the maintenance
of the grace and dignity of her bearing towards a hard and
inscrutable fate, a species of mental looking-glass. She never for a
minute lost sight of herself as reflected in it. She had not been a
happy woman, but she had worn her unhappiness like a robe of state.
She had had a most miserable love-affair in her late youth, but no
one except her brother could have affirmed with any certainty that it
had occasioned her a moment's pang.

She was hopeless as regarded any happiness for herself in a strictly