un-lighted
room.

"We certainly must practice economy. God knows where to-morrow's meals may
come from!"

"Jane's hens are in good laying condition, and there are the cherries on
the tree," said Miss Fleming tartly. She did not like Jane nor any other
woman, but she usually fought for her sex against men in a mannish
way--for the pleasure of fighting for the weaker party.

"Hens? Yes, and but for the whim of renting this tumble-down house with
its great gardens out on the suburb, we could have had snug rooms in some
business street, where I could have earned our bread and butter."

"It was your whim, captain. Why, she has kept up the table out of the
garden, and you know it. Don't interfere with the child. She can turn a
penny to the best advantage. Her ability is of the most practical kind."

The captain did not like her tone. He glanced uneasily at Jane, who ate
her cherries in calm unconsciousness.

"I might as well stick pins in the divine cow Audhumbla!" Miss Fleming
said to herself every day. This child, as she called her, irritated her,
just as a machine did, or an animal, or any other creature whose
motive-power she could by no means comprehend. She was herself a mass of
vitalized nerves, all of which centred in that secret I, Cornelia Fleming,
over whose hopes, nature and chances she brooded night and day. This other
woman, who simply grew in her place, concerning herself no more about her
own mind, body or future than the larch yonder did about its roots or
leaves, and who took praise and blame as indifferently as the tree, the
sun or rain, roused in her a feeling of active dislike. She called Jane
stolid to other people, but she was by no means satisfied that she was
stolid. She was often sorry that she had brought herself measurably under
the protection of Captain Swendon and his daughter by renting two of the
rooms in their house, though she had planned and manoeuvred a long time
to accomplish that end. When Miss Fleming came up to town to join the
art-class at the Academy, she was exceedingly careful not to join also the
emancipated lonely sisterhood, who set social laws at defiance. She might
live alone, but it must be under the roof of conventionally correct
people. She abjured the whole tribe of literary and artistic adventurers
who haunted the studios and lecture-halls. She wrote home to her old
mother that the Swendons, descended from the leaders of the first Swedish
settlers, that family of Sve