se, hard, solid rock, dear!"

Mildred tried to laugh lightly. "How Mr. Keith does hypnotize people!"
cried she.

Mrs. Brindley's cheeks burned, and her eyes lowered in acute
embarrassment. "He has a way of being splendidly and sensibly right,"
said she. "And the truth is wonderfully convincing--once one sees it."
She changed the subject, and it did not come up--or, perhaps, come OUT
again--before they went to bed. The next day Mildred began the
depressing, hopeless search for a place to live that would be clean,
comfortable, and cheap. Those three adjectives describe the ideal
lodging; but it will be noted that all these are relative. In fact,
none of the three means exactly the same thing to any two members of
the human family. Mildred's notion of clean--like her notion of
comfortable--on account of her bringing up implied a large element of
luxury. As for the word "cheap," it really meant nothing at all to
her. From one standpoint everything seemed cheap; from another,
everything seemed dear; that is, too dear for a young woman with less
than five hundred dollars in the world and no substantial prospect of
getting a single dollar more--unless by hook and crook, both of which
means she was resolved not to employ.

Never having earned so much as a single penny, the idea of anyone's
giving her anything for what she might be able to do was disturbingly
vague and unreal. On the other hand, looking about her, she saw scores
of men and women, personally known to her to be dull of conversation,
and not well mannered or well dressed or well anything, who were making
livings without overwhelming difficulty. Why not Mildred Gower? In
this view the outlook was not discouraging. "I'll no doubt go through
some discomfort, getting myself placed. But somewhere and somehow I
shall be placed--and how I shall revenge myself on Donald Keith!" His
fascination for her had not been destroyed by his humiliating lack of
belief in her, nor by his cold-hearted desertion at just the critical
moment. But his conduct had given her the incentive of rage, of stung
vanity--or wounded pride, if you prefer. She would get him back; she
would force him to admit; she would win him, if she could--and that
ought not to be difficult when she should be successful. Having won
him, then-- What then? Something superb in the way of revenge; she
would decide what, when the hour of triumph came. Meanwhile she must
search for lodgings.

In her j