everely rearranged the
magazines, slammed down a newspaper, and turned, angrily. "Why, can't
you see? I _can't_ give up my work now."

"Couldn't you get something to do in Panama, dearie?"

"You know perfectly well that I tried."

"But maybe now, with your college course and all--even if it took a
little longer to get something there, we'd be right among the folks we
know--"

"Mother, can't you understand that we have only a little over three
hundred dollars now? If we moved again and everything, we wouldn't have
two hundred dollars to live on. Haven't you _any_ sense of finances?"

"You must not talk to me that way, my daughter!"

A slim, fine figure of hurt-dignity, Mrs. Golden left the room, lay down
in the bedroom, her face away from the door where Una stood in
perplexity. Una ran to her, kissed her shoulder, begged for forgiveness.
Her mother patted her cheek, and sobbed, "Oh, it doesn't matter," in a
tone so forlorn and lonely that it did matter, terribly. The sadness of
it tortured Una while she was realizing that her mother had lost all
practical comprehension of the details of life, was become a child,
trusting everything to her daughter, yet retaining a power of suffering
such as no child can know.

It had been easy to bring her mother here, to start a career. Both of
them had preconceived a life of gaiety and beauty, of charming people
and pictures and concerts. But all those graces were behind a dusty wall
of shorthand and typewriting. Una's struggle in coming to New York had
just begun.

Gently arbitrary, dearer than ever to Una in her helpless longing for
kindly neighbors and the familiar places, Mrs. Golden went on hoping
that she could persuade Una to go back to Panama. She never seemed to
realize that their capital wasn't increasing as time passed. Sometimes
impatient at her obtuseness, sometimes passionate with comprehending
tenderness, Una devoted herself to her, and Mr. Schwirtz and Sanford
Hunt and Sam Weintraub and Todd faded. She treasured her mother's
happiness at their Christmas dinner with the Sessionses. She encouraged
the Sessionses to come up to the flat as often as they could, and she
lulled her mother to a tolerable calm boredom. Before it was convenient
to think of men again, her school-work was over.

The commercial college had a graduation once a month. On January 15,
1906, Una finished her course, regretfully said good-by to Sam
Weintraub, and to Sanford Hunt, who had gradua