t she had dreamed all night of weeping.

In her mail there was a note from Querida asking her to stop for a few
moments at his studio that afternoon, several business communications,
and a long letter from Mrs. Collis which she read lying in bed, one hand
resting on her aching temples:

"MY DEAR Miss WEST: Our interview this morning has left me with a
somewhat confused sense of indebtedness to you and an admiration and
respect for your character which I wished very much to convey to you
this morning, but which I was at a loss to express.

"You are not only kind and reasonable, but so entirely unselfish that my
own attitude in this unhappy matter has seemed to me harsh and
ungracious.

"I went to you entertaining a very different idea of you, and very
different sentiments from the opinion which I took away with me. I admit
that my call on you was not made with any agreeable anticipations; but
I was determined to see you and learn for myself what manner of woman
had so disturbed us all.

"In justice to you--in grateful recognition of your tact and gentleness,
I am venturing to express to you now my very thorough respect for you,
my sense of deep obligation, and my sympathy--which I am afraid you may
not care for.

"That it would not be suitable for a marriage to take place between my
brother and yourself is, it appears, as evident to you as it is to his
own family. Yet, will you permit me to wish that it were otherwise? I do
wish it; I wish that the circumstances had made such a marriage
possible. I say this to you in spite of the fact that we have always
expected my brother to marry into a family which has been intimate with
our own family for many generations. It is a tribute to your character
which I am unwilling to suppress; which I believe I owe to you, to say
that, had circumstances been different, you might have been made welcome
among us.

"The circumstances of which I speak are of an importance to us, perhaps
exaggerated, possibly out of proportion to the fundamental conditions of
the situation. But they are conditions which our family has never
ignored. And it is too late for us to learn to ignore them now.

"I think that you will feel--I think that a large part of the world
might consider our attitude toward such a woman as you have shown
yourself to be, narrow, prejudiced, provincial. The modern world would
scarcely arm us with any warrant for interfering in a matter which a man
nearly thirty is supp