Her mother looked distressed. "I wouldn't say that, if I were you,"
she advised. "Because you _want_ to care about people--you _must_!
Sights are beguiling, but they're never satisfying. We all have to
depend on people for our happiness--for love."

"Then I'll never be happy, I guess," said Mary Alice.

"I'm afraid, sometimes, that you've started out not to be," her mother
answered, gravely, "but we'll hope for the best."




II

YOUR OWN IS WAITING

Mary Alice dreaded to meet her godmother. The excitement of getting
away was all very well. But once she was alone in the Pullman, and the
friendly faces on the station platform were left behind, she began to
think apprehensively of what she was going to. She was sure to feel
"strange" with her godmother, and there was at least a pretty good
chance that she might actually dislike her. Also, there was every
reason to doubt if her godmother would like Mary Alice. Mary Alice had
several times met persons who had "been to Europe," and she had never
liked them; their conversation was all about things she did not know,
and larded with phrases she could not understand. Those years in
Europe made her doubly dread her godmother.

But the minute she saw her godmother at the Grand Central Station, she