e dreary old
house with its sad memories and its haunting emptiness was the fact
that it was hers and that here she could be independent and do as she
pleased. If she pleased to starve, no one else need know it. The big
ache that was in her heart was the fact that there was nobody really
to care if she did starve. Even Ellen's solicitations were largely
from duty and a fear of what the neighbors would say if she did not
look after her sister.

Julia was lonely and idle for the first time in her busy, dull life,
and her heart had just discovered its love-hunger, and was crying out
in desolation. She wanted something to love and be loved by. She
missed even the peevish, childish invalid whose last five years had
been little else than a living death, with a mind so vague and hazy as
seldom to know the faithful daughter who cared for her night and day.
She missed the heart and soul out of life, the bit of color that would
glorify all living and make it beautiful.

Well, to come back to sordid things, what was there that she could do
to eke out her pitiful little living? For live she must, since she was
here in this bleak world and it seemed to be expected of her. Keep
boarders? Yes, if there were any to keep; but in this town there were
few who boarded. There was nothing to draw strangers, and the old
inhabitants mostly owned their own houses.

She could sew, but there were already more sewing women in the
community than could be supported by the work there was to be done,
for most of the women in Sterling did their own sewing. There were two
things which she knew she could do well, which everybody knew she
could do, and for which she knew Ellen was anxious to have her
services. She was the best nurse in town and a fine cook. But again
the women of Sterling, most of them, did their own cooking, and there
was comparatively little nursing where a trained nurse would not be
hired. In short, the few things she could do were not in demand in
this neighborhood.

Nevertheless, she knew in her heart that she intended trying to live
by her own meagre efforts, going out for a few days nursing, or to
care for some children while their mothers went out to dinner or to
the city, to the theatre or shopping. There would be but little of
that, but perhaps by and by she could manage to make it the fashion.

As she looked into the future, she saw herself trudging gloomily down
the sunset way into a leaden sky, caring for the Brown twin