t face staring at her from out
of the small mirror. She looked at it uncertainly; could that really
be her own countenance? "I'll have to go away," she thought, and
began, with the courage of despair, to wonder what refuge would be
open to her.

In the mean time the evening meal was announced, and, to maintain
appearances, she went out and joined the family; the naturalness of
her part was very difficult to sustain. Gerhardt observed her subdued
condition without guessing the depth of emotion which it covered. Bass
was too much interested in his own affairs to pay particular attention
to anybody.

During the days that followed Jennie pondered over the difficulties
of her position and wondered what she should do. Money she had, it was
true; but no friends, no experience, no place to go. She had always
lived with her family. She began to feel unaccountable sinkings of
spirit, nameless and formless fears seemed to surround and haunt her.
Once when she arose in the morning she felt an uncontrollable desire
to cry, and frequently thereafter this feeling would seize upon her at
the most inopportune times. Mrs. Gerhardt began to note her moods, and
one afternoon she resolved to question her daughter.

"Now you must tell me what's the matter with you," she said
quietly. "Jennie, you must tell your mother everything."

Jennie, to whom confession had seemed impossible, under the
sympathetic persistence of her mother broke down at last and made the
fatal confession. Mrs. Gerhardt stood there, too dumb with misery to
give vent to a word.

"Oh!" she said at last, a great wave of self-accusation sweeping
over her, "it is all my fault. I might have known. But we'll do what
we can." She broke down and sobbed aloud.

After a time she went back to the washing she had to do, and stood
over her tub rubbing and crying. The tears ran down her cheeks and
dropped into the suds. Once in a while she stopped and tried to dry
her eyes with her apron, but they soon filled again.

Now that the first shock had passed, there came the vivid
consciousness of ever-present danger. What would Gerhardt do if he
learned the truth? He had often said that if ever one of his daughters
should act like some of those he knew he would turn her out of doors.
"She should not stay under my roof!" he had exclaimed.

"I'm so afraid of your father," Mrs. Gerhardt often said to Jennie
in this intermediate period. "I don't know what he'll say."

"Perhaps I'd be