e stoop, for it still wanted ten minutes to the
half hour.

Mrs. Van Dorn had taken up her letters rather listlessly. One from her
lawyer concerning some reinvestments, one from a charity for a
subscription. The thick one with the delicate superscription from Clara
Gage.

It was long, and about family affairs. They had been a good deal
worried over a mortgage that the holder had threatened to foreclose. But
her sister's lover had insisted upon taking it up, and would come home
to live. Her brother had obtained a good position as bookkeeper in a
mill. The youngest girl would always be an invalid from a spinal
trouble; Margaret, the eldest, sang in church and gave music lessons,
and thus had some time for home occupations. Mrs. Gage was quite
disabled from rheumatism at times. But now Clara felt the dependent ones
were in good hands, and she would not only go abroad cheerfully, but
gladly. Her hesitation had been because she felt they might need her at
home, or near by, where they could call upon her in illness or
misfortune. "You have been very kind to wait until I could see my way
clear," she wrote, "and my gratitude in time to come will be your
reward."

Mrs. Van Dorn felt a little pricked in her conscience. She could have
settled all this herself, and made things easy for them, but Clara had
not suggested any money trouble. Mrs. Van Dorn paid her a generous
salary. Down in her heart there had been a jealous feeling that her
money could not buy everything, could not buy this girl from certain
home obligations.

But the letter pleased her very much in its frankness and its
acknowledgment of favors. Yet her old heart seemed strangely desolate.
How could she obtain the love she really desired? For if you did favors
there was gratitude, but was that love?

Did anybody care to love an old woman? She sometimes longed to have
tender arms put about her neck, and fond kisses given. But her cheeks
were made up with the semblance of youth, her lips had a tint that it
was not well to disturb. Oh, to go back! To be fifty only, and have
almost fifty more years to live. The money would last out all that time,
even.

But here was a chance with this new girl. Clara might marry. She, Mrs.
Van Dorn, had been rather captious about admirers. It wasn't given to
every girl to make a good marriage at five and thirty. In three years
Helen would be seventeen, and with a good education, very companionable.
It would be best not to lead h