answered mother.

"What do you think is the trouble?"

"I'm afraid things are not coming out with Mr. Paget as she hoped."

"If they don't, she is going to be unhappy?"

"That's putting it mildly."

"Well, I was doubtful in the beginning."

"Now hold on," said mother. "So was I; but what are you going to do?
I can't go through the world with my girls, and meet men for them. I
trained them just as carefully as possible before I started them out;
that was all I could do. Shelley knows when a man appears clean,
decent and likable. She knows when his calling is respectable. She
knows when his speech is proper, his manners correct, and his ways
attractive. She found this man all of these things, and she liked him
accordingly. At Christmas she told me about it freely."

"Have you any idea how far the thing has gone?"

"She said then that she had seen him twice a week for two months. He
seemed very fond of her. He had told her he cared more for her than
any girl he ever had met, and he had asked her to come here this summer
and pay us a visit, so she wanted to know if he might."

"Of course you told her yes."

"Certainly I told her yes. I wish now we'd saved money and you'd gone
to visit her and met him when she first wrote of him. You could have
found out who and what he was, and with your experience you might have
pointed out signs that would have helped her to see, before it was too
late."

"What do you think is the trouble?"

"I wish I knew! She simply is failing to mention him in her letters;
all the joy of living has dropped from them, she merely writes about
her work; and now she is beginning to complain of homesickness and to
say that she doesn't know how to endure the city any longer. There's
something wrong."

"Had I better go now?"

"Too late!" said mother, and I could hear her throat go wrong and the
choke come into her voice. "She is deeply in love with him; he hasn't
found in her what he desires; probably he is not coming any more; what
could you do?"

"I could go and see if there is anything I could do?"

"She may not want you. I'll write her to-morrow and suggest that you
or Laddie pay her a visit and learn what she thinks."

"All right," said father.

He kissed her and went to sleep, but mother was awake yet, and she got
up and stood looking down at the church and the two little white
gravestones she could see from her window, until I thought she would
freeze, and she di