journey she would have to take alone, while Mr. Rowland arranged for her
comfort in the same fatherly way he would have done for his own Mildred.
"What would I have done without you?" she exclaimed, in a choking voice,
as she clung to Mrs. Rowland at parting. "Now I shall be adrift again,
all alone in the world, as soon as you unclasp your hand."

"No, Providence will take care of you, dear," answered Mrs. Rowland.
"Just keep thinking of that motto you told me about, and let us hear
from you when you are safe in Carlsville."

* * * * *

Easter had always come to Mildred with the freshness of country meadows,
with cowslips and crocuses, with the soft green of budding hedgerows and
a chorus of twittering bird-calls in the old rectory garden. This year,
after her long, dreary winter in Carlsville, she looked out on the roofs
of the smoky little manufacturing town, and saw only red brick factories
and dingy houses and dirty streets. The longing for the spring in her
old English home lay in her heart like a throbbing pain. "Oh, papa," she
sobbed, resting her arms on the window-sill and laying her head wearily
down, "do you know all about it, dearest? Oh, if you could only tell me
what to do!"

A week before, her aunt, Belle Barnard, had said, in her sickly,
complaining voice, "Well, Mildred, I don't like to tell you, but I have
been talking the matter over with the girls, and they think that we
might as well be plain-spoken with you. Everybody thought that your
Uncle Joe was a rich man, and so did we till we got the business settled
up. Now we find that after the lawyers are paid there won't be enough
for us all to live on comfortably. At least there wouldn't be if it