a man on the face of this earth that is worthy of
such a wealth of love! But how are the mother and sister? And how is
the mortgage getting on?"

He was standing in front of her, and, although she was not a tall
woman, their eyes were on a level. His deeply lined, thin face was so
pale, that, with its white mustache, heavy, gray-white eyebrows and
crown of silver-white hair, it was like an artist's study of white
against white.

As Henrietta looked into it a sudden vision came to her of the long
procession of men and women who had passed through that office,
stricken and fearful, their desperate eyes pleading with that one pale
face for help, and a lump came in her throat. She coughed before she
could speak.

"We begin to think mother is getting better," she said, "now that she
is feeling so much at ease about money matters. And the mortgage is
slowly dwindling. If I have no bad luck I expect to clear it all off
by the end of the summer."

"Good! You are a splendid, plucky girl, my dear, and I'm as proud of
you as your father would have been!"

CHAPTER XIII

MILDRED IS MILITANT

The next afternoon Henrietta left her office early, in order to
discharge some commissions for her sister in the shopping district.
Stopping to look at a window display of spring costumes, her eye was
caught by a dress that suited her taste exactly. She inspected it from
both sides and went into the doorway that she might get the back view.

"What a lovely suit and how becoming it would be for me!" she thought.
"I wonder if I could afford to buy it. Oh dear, no! I mustn't even
think of such a thing! It would be just that much off the mortgage
payments."

She turned away with a sigh and found herself face to face with Hugh
Gordon, who glanced with a quizzical smile from her to the window.

"Did you hear one of the commandments cracking?" she laughed. "I've
just been coveting one of those suits as hard as I could."

"Are you going in to buy it now?" he asked with a suggestion of
disappointment in his air, as if, having come upon her so
unexpectedly, he disliked to lose her again at once.

"Oh, dear, no! I'm not going to buy it at all. I can't afford it."

"Well, then, you are wise not to buy it, and the best way is not even
to think about it any more," he said in that abrupt manner to which,
although it had sometimes startled her at their first meetings, she
had already grown accustomed. She had told herself more than onc