d to consider.

"No," she said presently. "I am not that kind."

She raised her eyes and they met Mrs. Talcott's. "What are you going to
do now?" she asked.

"Well," said Mrs. Talcott, drawing a long sigh of fatigue, "I've been
thinking that over and I guess I'll stay over here. There ain't any
place for me in America now; all my folks are dead. You know that money
my Uncle Adam left me a long time ago that I bought the annuity with.
Well, I've saved most of that annuity; I'd always intended that Karen
should have what I'd saved when I died. But Karen don't need it now.
It'll buy me a nice little cottage somewhere and I can settle down and
have a garden and chickens and live on what I've got."

"How much was it, the annuity?" Madame von Marwitz asked after a moment.

"A hundred and ten pounds a year," said Mrs. Talcott.

"But you cannot live on that," Madame von Marwitz, after another moment,
said.

"Why, gracious sakes, of course I can, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott replied,
smiling dimly.

Again there was silence and then Madame von Marwitz said, in a voice a
little forced: "You have not got much out of life, have you, Tallie?"

"Well, no; I don't expect you would say as I had," Mrs. Talcott
acquiesced, showing a slight surprise.

"You haven't even got me--now--have you," Madame von Marwitz went on,
looking down at her door-knob and running her hand slowly round it while
she spoke. "Not even the criminal. But that is a gain, you feel, no
doubt, rather than a loss."

"No, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott mildly; "I don't feel that way. I feel
it's a loss, I guess. You see you're all the family I've got left."

"And you," said Madame von Marwitz, still looking down at her knob, "are
all the family I have left."

Mrs. Talcott now looked at her. Mercedes did not raise her eyes. Her
face was sad and very pale and it had not lost its stateliness. Mrs.
Talcott looked at her for what seemed to be a long time and the vistas
of her eyes deepened with a new acceptance.

It was without any elation and yet without any regret that she said in
her mild voice: "Do you want me to come back with you, Mercedes?"

"Will you?" Madame von Marwitz asked in a low voice.

"Why, yes, of course I'll come if you want me, Mercedes," said Mrs.
Talcott.

Madame von Marwitz now opened her door. "Thank you, Tallie," she said.

"You look pretty tired," Mrs. Talcott, following her into the bedroom,
remarked. "You'd better lie down and take