fears danced blackly in Mrs. Bassett's tired brain.

At a season when she was always busiest with her farms Mrs. Owen had
made a long journey to see Sylvia graduated; and here was the girl
established on the most intimate terms in the Delaware Street house, no
doubt for the remainder of her life. Mrs. Owen did not lightly or often
change her plans; but she had abandoned her project of spending the
summer at the lake to accommodate herself to the convenience of her
protegee. Mrs. Bassett's ill-health was by no means a matter of
illusion; she was not well and her sojourns in sanatoriums had served
to alienate her in a measure from her family. Marian had grown to
womanhood without realizing her mother's ideals. She had hoped to make a
very different person of her daughter, and Sylvia's reappearance
intensified her sense of defeat. Even in the retrospect she saw no
reason why Marian might not have pursued the course that Sylvia had
followed; in her confused annoyances and agitations she was bitter not
only against Marian but against Marian's father. The time had come when
she must take a stand against his further dallyings in politics.

Her day at the convention hall had yielded only the most disagreeable
impressions. Such incidents as had not eluded her own understanding on
the spot had been freely rendered by the newspapers. It was all sordid
and gross--not at all in keeping with her first experience of politics,
gained in her girlhood, when her father had stood high in the councils
of the nation, winning coveted positions without the support of such
allies as she had seen cheering her husband's triumph on the floor of
the convention. There had strayed into her hands an envelope of
newspaper clippings from an agency that wished to supply her, as, its
circular announced, it supplied the wives of many other prominent
Americans, with newspaper comments on their husbands. As a bait for
securing a client these examples of what the American press was saying
of Morton Bassett were decidedly ill-chosen. The "Stop, Look, Listen"
editorial had suggested to many influential journals a re-indictment of
bossism with the Bassett-Thatcher imbroglio as text. It was
disenchanting to find one's husband enrolled in a list of political
reprobates whose activities in so many states were a menace to public
safety. Her father had served with distinction and honor this same
commonwealth that her husband was debasing; he had been a statesman, not