of
childhood to call "mamma." And as she grew older and was unused to any
other name for Mrs. Wheeler, the widowed aunt, she toned it into the
familiar and comfortable word "mother," and had always spoken to and of
her in that name.

Yet she knew very well how little the title meant to her. She had loved
this old lady with a sort of pitying, patronizing love, realizing even
very early in her life that she, herself, had more self-reliance, more
executive ability, in her little finger, than was spread all over the
placid lady who early learned that "Ruthie" was to do precisely as she
pleased.

Such a cipher was this same old lady in the household, that when a long
lost son appeared on the surface, during Ruth's absence at Chautauqua,
proving, sturdy old Californian as he was, to have a home and place for
his mother, and a heart to take her with him, her departure caused
scarcely a ripple in the well-ordered household of the Erskines.

She had been its nominal head for eighteen years, but the real head who
was absent at Chautauqua, had three or four perfectly trained servants,
who knew their young mistress' will so well, that they could execute it
in her absence as well as when she was present.

So when Ruth took, in the eyes of everybody, the position that had
really been hers so long, it made no sort of change in her plans or
ways. And beyond a certain lingering tenderness when she spoke of her by
that familiar title, "mother," there was no indication that the woman
who had had so constant and intimate connection with her life was
remembered.

But this name applied to another, and that other, one whom she had never
seen in her life, and who yet was actually to occupy the position of
head of the household--her father's wife, in the eyes of society her
mother, spoken of as such, herself asked, "How is your mother?" or "What
does your mother think of this?" Would anyone dare to use that name to
her? No one had so spoken of her aunt. They all knew she was only her
aunt, though she chose to pet her by the use of that tender name. Could
she bear all these things and a hundred others that would come up?

"Marion," she said the next day as she chanced to meet that young lady
on the street, "I have something to tell you. I want to call on you to
witness that I shall never again be guilty of that vainglorious
absurdity of saying that I am ready for anything. One can never know
whether this is true or not; at least I am sur