r, and it was impossible to see her
without realizing that she had chosen wisely for herself.

To Shadyville she had always seemed a brilliant figure; now, as a
successful professional singer, she was a dazzling one. Even Sheila
was a little awed by her, although the two had kept up their
childhood's friendship during all these years of separation and of such
diverse interests. Every now and then Charlotte descended on
Shadyville for a brief visit to her parents, and then she invariably
took up with Sheila their dropped threads and wove a new flower into
the pattern of their affection. On this occasion she came to Sheila
with more than her usual warmth, divining what a grief Mrs. Caldwell's
death must have been to her, and she watched her friend, as the days
passed, with an increasing solicitude.

To all appearances everything was well with the Kent household. Sheila
and Ted seemed to be on the best of terms; Eric had grown into a fine,
healthy, handsome little lad, particularly fond of his proud mother;
prosperity, as Shadyville measured it, fairly shone from the charming
and well-ordered little house. Certainly all appeared to be well with
Sheila, yet Charlotte was not satisfied about her. Six months had
passed since Mrs. Caldwell's death, and though Charlotte allowed for
the sincerity and depth of Sheila's mourning, she rejected a sorrow
already somewhat softened by time as sufficient cause for the change
she found in Sheila. There was something else, something of an
altogether different nature, that was responsible for the hunger of
Sheila's eyes, the restlessness of her manner. Charlotte remembered,
with a rush of indignation, Sheila's unfulfilled ambitions, her wasted
gift. That was the trouble; of course that baffled gift of Sheila's
was the trouble. And something must be done about it. She was with
Sheila when she came to this conclusion, and immediately she acted on
it, impulsive, decisive creature that she was.

"What of your writing, Sheila dear? I can't recall your speaking of it
to me for a long, long while."

"Oh--_that's_ over!" replied Sheila, with unhappy emphasis.

"But why?"

It was a warm May afternoon and they were sitting on Sheila's veranda.
Out on the lawn Eric and another boy of his own age frolicked about
like a couple of animated puppies. Sheila pointed to them:

"You remember what Mrs. North said--that a woman couldn't be both
mother and artist?"

"I told you that wasn'