at what she beheld.

The person standing before her appeared much older than her years;
for she was only two and thirty. But it was not because Glory
Goldie had turned gray at the temples and her forehead was covered
with a mass of wrinkles that Katrina was shocked, but because she
had grown ugly. She had acquired an unnatural leaden hue and there
was something heavy and gross about her mouth. The whites of her
eyes had become gray and bloodshot, and the skin under her eyes
hung in sacks.

Katrina had sunk down on a chair. She sat with her hands tightly
clasped round her knees to keep them from shaking. She was thinking
of the radiant young girl of seventeen in the red dress; for thus
had she lived in Katrina's memory up to the present moment. She
wondered whether she could ever be happy over Glory Goldie's
return.

"You should have written," she said. "You should at least have sent
us a greeting, so that we could have known you were still in the
land of the living."

"Yes, I know," said the daughter. Her voice, at least, had not
failed her; it sounded as confident and cheery as of old. "I went
wrong in the beginning--but perhaps you've heard about it?"

"Yes; that much we know," sighed Katrina.

"That was why I stopped writing," said Glory Goldie, with a little
laugh. There was something strong and sturdy about the girl then,
as formerly. She was not one of those who torture themselves with
remorse and self-condemnation. "Don't think any more of that,
mother," she added, as Katrina did not speak. "I've been doing real
well lately. For a time I kept a restaurant and now, I'll have you
know, I'm head stewardess on a steamer that runs between Malmoe and
Luebeck, and this fall I have fitted up a home for myself at Malmoe.
Sometimes I felt that I ought to write to you, but finding it
rather hard to start in again, I decided to put it off until I was
prepared to take you and father to live with me. Then, after I'd
got everything fixed fine for you, I thought it would be ever so
much nicer to come for you myself than to write."

"And you haven't heard anything about us?" asked Katrina. All that
Glory Goldie had told her mother should have gladdened her, but
instead it only made her feel the more depressed.

"No," replied the daughter, then added, as if in self-justification:
"I knew, of course, that you'd find help if things got too bad." At
the same time she noticed how Katrina's hands shook for all they
were be