to, he never got out to see us. His wife
couldn't stand the journey. And when mother died, he was way over in
Egypt, so of course he didn't come. All that I know is that he's
handsome and dignified and lives in a very proper place where they have
everything correct and conventional--musical advantages and oratorios
and lectures on Emerson, and village improvement and associated
charities and all that, but no vaudeville nor movies. I suppose if
there were a theatre they'd only play Ibsen and Bernard Shaw."

Elsie Marley opened her eyes rather wider than usual. For it all
sounded attractive to her, particularly in contrast with the
boarding-house and New York.

"He's awfully religious-looking, you know," Elsie Moss continued. "He
wears the same sort of waistcoats and collars the Episcopalians do,
though he's a Congregationalist, and his picture is more than
dignified, I can tell you. Well, no doubt he's dreading me just as
much as I am him, or else he's expecting me to be just like mother and
will have the surprise of his life."

She hesitated. "I suppose I do look like her," she added gently and
quite as if she believed the other girl to be deeply interested. Then
her voice dropped suddenly and her eyes filled with tears. "Mother
died--in the earthquake," she added.

Something vaguely uncomfortable just stirred the surface of Elsie
Marley's consciousness, though it wasn't sufficiently acute to be
called a pang. The earthquake had happened seven or eight years
ago--and this girl's grief seemed fresh to-day. Her own mother had
been dead less than three years.

She did not acknowledge that her mother was only a memory. She hardly
realized it, indeed. Only, conscious of that vague, strange
discomfort, she had an impulse to get away from it. She put a languid
question.

"What have you done since?"

"I've learned what a difference mothers make," returned the girl
soberly. Then she darted suddenly outside the range of the umbrella.

"What's that? A gopher?" she cried. "Oh, my goodness, it's only one
of those ridiculous Dutch dogs.

"It might have been, you know," she said as she returned to the shade.
Then she resumed the subject she had dropped. Elsie Marley said to
herself that she needn't listen, but as a matter of fact she heard
every word.

"I was so small I couldn't do much, and we had an awful time for a
year. Dad was always more or less hard up, but he was worse after the
earthquake, an