him no one could doubt, but he was winning his own way, and did not
need her mother care. It left her free for other things; it made the
other things essential to her happiness. How empty is a mother's life
when from it, out into the world, her only son goes venturing, none
but a mother knows. Mrs. Vanderlyn had striven to fill hers with
social episodes and had not done so to her satisfaction. There were
things, she had discovered, which money, by itself, cannot accomplish
and the learning had astonished her. She had thought a golden key
would certainly unlock all gates. It had come to her as inspiration
that the easy way for an American to gain social favor in New York,
where, hitherto, gates have been closed to her, might be to purchase
social favor, first, in England or in Germany and then come back with
the distinction of it clinging like a perfume to her garments. But the
purchase had not been an easy matter. Abroad, to her amazement, money
had its mighty value, but only as a superstructure. There must be
firmer stuff for the foundation--family. Her family was traced too
easily--for the tracing was too brief. It ended with abruptness which
was startling, two generations back, in a far western mining camp.
Beyond that all the cutest experts in false genealogies had failed to
carry it convincingly.

"Anna," she said to the attentive girl, "tell me about your family in
Germany."

"My family?" said Anna. "There is no family of mine, now, left in
Germany. My father--he is here with me, my mother died when I was very
young. I can remember her a little, but _so_ little that it makes my
heart ache, for it is so ver-ry little."

"I mean about your grandfather and grandmother. Who were they and what