ive who is giving him
trouble--some black sheep of his family, very likely."

She walked to the window and stood there silently, her thoughts
hovering around this unknown personality, and became conscious of the
upspringing in her breast of a feeling of disapproval and even of
enmity toward the man because of the trouble he seemed to be giving
to the employer she admired so much and for whose appreciation and
unvarying kindness she felt so much gratitude.

Then there surged over her a wave of discontent, against whose
threatened onslaught she had half consciously been doing battle ever
since she had talked with Felix Brand in the morning. Now it was upon
her. How monotonous seemed her life, how destitute of the pleasures
that most girls had as their right! If she could only use for her own
enjoyment some of that money she worked so hard to earn! But that
everlasting mortgage on their home which had to be paid off--how the
thought of it irked and galled when she longed to travel, buy
beautiful clothes, go to the theatre and the opera, have young friends
and ride and drive and play golf and dance and sing with them. It was
the playtime of life and she was having to spend it in work, work,
work!

"Oh, there isn't anybody who would enjoy all those things as I
should," she thought, "and I want them so!"

She turned impatiently from the window and her glance fell upon her
mother, smiling gently and happily as she lay back in her easy chair,
and remorse entered her heart.

"What an ungrateful little beast I am," she stormed at herself, "to
feel like that when I ought to be thankful I can earn money enough to
keep mother in comfort! Was it because Mr. Brand was here that I felt
that way? Harry Marne, be ashamed of yourself! Aren't you old enough
to be responsible for your own thoughts?"

She sat down beside her mother and taking her hand pressed it tenderly
against her cheek.

CHAPTER V

MRS. BRAND'S DREAM SON

It was half a week after that spring-like Sunday when Felix Brand
motored to his secretary's home on Staten Island, and a feathery pall,
white as forgiven sins, was sifting down from the heavens upon all the
eastern seaboard. In a town within the suburban radius of Philadelphia
its mantle of purity lay almost undisturbed upon lawns and streets and
vacant lots. Two women were looking out upon the snow-covered earth
and snow-filled sky from the side window of a cottage near the edge of
the town. One, s