then
Anna would bring one of them to Miss Mathilda for advice.

It is wonderful how poor people love to take advice from people who
are friendly and above them, from people who read in books and who are
good.

Miss Mathilda saw Mrs. Drehten and told her she was glad that she was
going to the hospital for operation for that surely would be best, and
so good Mrs. Drehten's mind was set at rest.

Mrs. Drehten's tumor came out very well. Mrs. Drehten was afterwards
never really well, but she could do her work a little better, and be
on her feet and yet not get so tired.

And so Anna's life went on, taking care of Miss Mathilda and all her
clothes and goods, and being good to every one that asked or seemed to
need her help.

Now, slowly, Anna began to make it up with Mrs. Lehntman. They could
never be as they had been before. Mrs, Lehntman could never be again
the romance in the good Anna's life, but they could be friends again,
and Anna could help all the Lehntmans in their need. This slowly came
about.

Mrs. Lehntman had now left the evil and mysterious man who had been
the cause of all her trouble. She had given up, too, the new big
house that she had taken. Since her trouble her practice had been
very quiet. Still she managed to do fairly well. She began to talk of
paying the good Anna. This, however, had not gotten very far.

Anna saw Mrs. Lehntman a good deal now. Mrs. Lehntman's crisp, black,
curly hair had gotten streaked with gray. Her dark, full, good looking
face had lost its firm outline, gone flabby and a little worn. She had
grown stouter and her clothes did not look very nice. She was as bland
as ever in her ways, and as diffuse as always in her attention, but
through it all there was uneasiness and fear and uncertainty lest some
danger might be near.

She never said a word of her past life to the good Anna, but it was
very plain to see that her experience had not left her easy, nor yet
altogether free.

It had been hard for this good woman, for Mrs. Lehntman was really a
good woman, it had been a very hard thing for this german woman to do
what everybody knew and thought was wrong. Mrs. Lehntman was strong
and she had courage, but it had been very hard to bear. Even the
good Anna did not speak to her with freedom. There always remained a
mystery and a depression in Mrs. Lehntman's affair.

And now the blonde, foolish, awkward daughter, Julia was in trouble.
During the years the mother gave her n