l," she added thoughtfully.

"I'm such a poor-spirited creature," remarked Eloise.

"What now?"

"I ought to be strong enough to leave you since you will not come; to
leave this roof and earn my own living, some way, any way; but I'm too
much of a coward."

"I should hope so," returned her mother briefly. "You'd soon become one
if you weren't at starting. Girls bred to luxury, as you have been, must
just contrive to live well somehow. They can't stand anything else."

"Nonsense, mother," quietly. "They can. They do."

"Yes, in books I know they do."

"No, truth is stranger than fiction. They do. I have been looking for
that sort of stamina in myself for weeks, but I haven't found it. It is
a cruel wrong to a girl not to teach her to support herself."

"My dear! You were going to college. You know you would have gone had it
not been for your poor father's misfortunes."

Eloise's eyes filled again at the remembrance of the young, gay man who
had been her boon companion since her babyhood, and at the memory of
those last sad days, when she knew he had agonized over her future even
more than over that of his volatile wife.

"My dear, as I've told you before, a girl as pretty as you are should
know that fortune cannot be unkind, nor the sea of life too rough. In
each of the near waves of it you can see a man's head swimming toward
you. You don't know the trouble I have had already in silencing those
who wished to speak before you were old enough. They could any of them
be summoned now with a word. Let me see. There is Mr. Derwent--Mr.
Follansbee--Mr. Weeks--"

"Hush, mother!" ejaculated the girl in disgust.

"Exactly. I knew you would say they were too old, or too bald, or too
short, or too fat. I've been a girl myself. Of course there is Nat
Bonnell, and a lot more little waves and ripples like him, but they
always _were_ out of the question, and now they are ten times more so.
That is the reason, Eloise," the mother's voice became impressive to
the verge of solemnity, "why I feel that Dr. Ballard is almost a
providence."

The girl's clear eyes were reflective. "Nat Bonnell is a wave who
wouldn't remember a girl who had slipped out of the swim."

"Very wise of him," returned Mrs. Evringham emphatically. "He
can't afford to. Nat is--is--a--decorative creature, just as you
are,--decorative. He must make it pay, poor boy."

Meanwhile Mrs. Forbes had sought her son in the barn. He and she had had
their supper