different. He is a man, and he will make his way in the world. Then,
too, his expenses will be trebled next year when he goes off to school,
and after that, of course, will come college. I don't believe anything
or anybody can keep Archibald back," she went on proudly. "Do you know
he talks already of going to work in a shipping office in order to help
me?"

"It's a pity about his eyes."

"There's nothing wrong except near-sightedness, but he'll have to wear
glasses all his life."

For a minute Miss Polly stitched almost furiously, while her small
weatherbeaten face, with its grotesque features, was visited by an
illumination that softened and ennobled its ugliness. From living
entirely in the lives of others, she had attained the spiritual serenity
and detachment of a saint as well as the saint's immunity from the
intenser personal forms of suffering. Long habit had accustomed her to
think of herself only in connection with somebody's need of her, and
beyond this she hardly appeared as an individual existence even in her
own secret reflections. As far as it is possible to achieve absolute
unselfishness in a world planned upon egoistic principles Miss Polly had
achieved it; and the result was that she was almost perfectly happy.

"Fanny seems right set on goin' down to Twenty-third Street, don't she?"
she inquired, after an interval of musing.

"It's all because Carlie lives in the row, and by next year, after we've
had all the trouble of moving, she'll find another bosom friend and want
to go to Park Avenue."