defiant boom had rattled every pane of glass in the old house.

Ellen had chuckled at this spirited climax to the episode. It was like
Martin, she said. But Lucy regretted the whole affair and found difficulty
in applauding her aunt's dramatic imitation of the affrighted Howes and
their final ignominious retreat. Of course it was only to be expected that
the women next door should resent the incident and that they should
include her, innocent though she was, in this resentment. Nevertheless, it
was a pity that the avenue to further friendly advances between herself
and them should be so summarily closed.

Lucy was very lonely. Having been the center of a large and noisy
household and received a disproportionate degree of homage from her
father's employees, the transition from sovereign to slave was
overwhelming. She did not, however, rebel at the labor her new environment
entailed, but she did chafe beneath its slavery. Nevertheless, her
captivity, much as it irked her, was of only trivial importance when
compared with the greater evil of being completely isolated from all
sympathetic companionship. Between herself and her aunt there existed such
an utter lack of unity of principle that the chasm thereby created was
one which she saw with despair it would never be possible to bridge. Had
the gulf been merely one of tastes and inclinations, it would not have
been so hopeless. But to realize they had no standards in common and that
the only tie that bound them together was the frail thread of kinship was
a disheartening outlook indeed.

It was true that as time went on this link strengthened, for Ellen
developed a brusque liking for her niece, even a shamefaced and
unacknowledged respect. Notwithstanding this, however, the fundamentals
that guided the actions of the two remained as divergent as before, and
beyond discussions concerning garden and home, a few anecdotes relating to
the past, and a crisp and not too delicate jest when the elder woman was
in the humor, their intercourse glanced merely along the shallows.

Over and over, when alone, Lucy asked herself why she stayed on at Sefton
Falls to sacrifice her life on the altar of family loyalty. Was not her
youth being spent to glorify an empty fetish which brought to no one any
real good?

But the query always brought her back to the facts of her aunt's
friendlessness and infirmity. For defy Time as she would, Ellen was old
and was rapidly becoming older. Whether