be swept away in an hour, and leave no one the worse.
Suppose her own summons came; there would be a little flurry
throughout the great establishment, legal matters to settle, notes of
thanks to be written for flowers. Margaret could imagine Victoria and
Harriet, awed but otherwise unaffected, home from school in midweek,
and to be sent back before the next Monday. Their lives would go on
unchanged, their mother had never buttered bread for them, never
schemed for their boots and hats, never watched their work and play,
and called them to her knees for praise and blame. Mr. Carr-Boldt
would have his club, his business, his yacht, his motor-cars,--he was
well accustomed to living in cheerful independence of family claims.

But life without Mother--! In a sick moment of revelation, Margaret
saw it. She saw them gathering in the horrible emptiness and silence
of the house Mother had kept so warm and bright, she saw her father's
stooped shoulders and trembling hands, she saw Julie and Beck, red
eyed, white-cheeked, in fresh black,--she seemed to hear the low-toned
voices that would break over and over again so cruelly into sobs. What
could they do--who could take up the work she laid down,--who would
watch and plan and work for them all, now? Margaret thought of the
empty place at the table, of the room that, after all these years, was
no longer "Mother's room--"

Oh, no--no--no!--She began to cry bitterly in the dark. No, please
God, they would hold her safe with them for many years. Mother should
live to see some of the fruits of the long labor of love. She should
know that with every fresh step in life, with every deepening
experience, her children grew to love her better, turned to her more
and more! There would be Christmases as sweet as the old ones, if not
so gay; there would come a day--Margaret's whole being thrilled to the
thought--when little forms would run ahead of John and herself up the
worn path, and when their children would be gathered in Mother's
experienced arms! Did life hold a more exquisite moment, she wondered,
than that in which she would hear her mother praise them!

All her old castles in the air seemed cheap and tinselled to-night,
beside these tender dreams that had their roots in the real truths of
life. Travel and position, gowns and motor-cars, yachts and country
houses, these things were to be bought in all their perfection by the
highest bidder, and always would be. But love and characte