s making a sharp, desperate fight. Strong natures have to. Why was
she born with these ambitions and aims and capabilities and the ardent
desire to do something? All girls did not have them. Some in the class
laughed and made merry without a thought of the future. Some expected to
teach and 'just hated it.' She would have been so glad. Well the dream
must be given up--at least for years. It would be horrible to count on
her mother's death for freedom. She shuddered.

They went to bed, but neither of them slept until after midnight. Now
and then Lilian heard a soft sob. She felt that she ought to comfort her
mother, but what could she say? Since she had been growing up she had
become aware of a barrier between them. Mrs. Boyd had loved her
fervently as a little girl, she had not taken any special pride in her
entering the High School with such a fine record. She was in no sense an
ambitious or an intellectual woman and the girl's vigor and intentness
sometimes frightened her. She should have been in some other sphere.

Lilian sank into a sort of dull apathy, questioning everything as youth
often does under a great disappointment. What was the use of living if
one could never attain the things one desired? She was not like Sally
nor dozens of other girls. Their commonplace lives would be martyrdom to
her.

So they both slept late. Lilian prepared the simple breakfast.

"Perhaps it would be a good thing to get out last winter's clothes and
see what can be fixed over," said the mother. "But you have grown so
much this year, Lilian."

Oh, if clothes mattered, if anything mattered! There was the postman's
whistle.

Quite a thick letter for her mother in a neat lady's hand.

"Why that's funny," and a smile brightened the girl's face.

Mrs. Boyd glanced it over. "Why it's from Mrs. Searing. She was here
last March, you know. She has always taken such an interest in you,
and--oh read it, read it aloud. My head is so bad this morning."

She began to cry again.

Helen took the letter. The first page was full of friendly interest and
then she branched off into a delightful visit she had been making at a
very pretty place, one of the old fashioned aristocratic towns where a
relative kept a select and high class Seminary for young ladies. She had
found her in something of a quandary. The woman who had taken charge of
the bed and table line and a sort of general seamstress had suddenly
married, and it was necessary to fill