as much better than the view of the
East-side elevated; so, though she had made no friend whom she loved as
she loved Kathleen, she did not regret her change of residence. But
during each day, in the outing that she allowed herself, far back in her
mind, whether feeding the ducks and goldfish or retailing a new phase in
the history of Tom-of-the-Woods, there was a sense of irksome
responsibility, of the necessity shortly of deciding upon the next step
in life.

"I had a letter from Dick to-day," Mrs. Pickens announced to Hertha one
evening in the third week of his departure.

She had not mentioned him before, except casually, since the night they
had talked in her room.

"What does he say?" Hertha asked.

They were sitting out on the stoop, for the evening was a warm one.

"Oh, nothing very much," Mrs. Pickens answered, "chiefly joking about
the dreadful food he gets and how glad he will be to come home."

"Men do care a lot about what they have to eat."

"They surely do. I suppose it's partly because after their work they're
hungry, really hungry, and food tastes good to them. I work, too, but
when I've been over this house, from top to bottom, and seen that Mary
doesn't spoil everything she puts her hand to, I haven't the least
desire for my dinner."

"You take it all very hard," Hertha said.

"Do I? Well, I suspect that's because I am incompetent, like Mary, and
it makes me nervous and doubly anxious over everything."

"That's the way I feel in class."

Mrs. Pickens glanced anxiously at the young girl noting how
fragile-looking she had grown in the past weeks.

"You seemed so well when you came here," she said, "and now you are
certainly thin. I hope it isn't my incompetence that has brought the
change about."

"You know it isn't," the girl answered.

There was a pleasant silence in which neither felt the necessity of
speech and then out of the fast approaching darkness Hertha asked: "Have
you spent the most of your life in New York?"

"No, I only came here after my marriage. My life has been an ordinary
one. A quiet girlhood, fifteen years of perfect married life, and now, a
common struggle to keep from being despondent and to make both ends
meet. The best for me is done."

"Fifteen years wasn't very long, was it?"

"One way it seems about fifteen minutes but another way it seems an
eternity. It was all my life--I'm only existing now. And do you know,"
speaking in a low voice into the twilight,