often treated me. She was a desperately lonely old soul. Nobody cared a
bit about her, really, and she knew it."

"In spite of all her little amiable tricks to make people love her,"
said the doctor. "Now, remember, the garden for an hour this morning,
the drawing-room later in the day, after you've rested for an hour or
so. And don't dare disobey me." With that, he left.

It was pleasant in the garden. The air, though chilly, held the promise
of spring. Warmly wrapped in an old cape, which the thoughtful Kate had
discovered somewhere, with a book on Paris and some Italian sketches to
fall back upon when her own thoughts ceased to divert her, Nora sat in a
sheltered corner and looked out on the border which would soon be gay
with the tulips whose green stocks were just beginning to push
themselves up through the brown earth. Poor Miss Wickham! She had been
so proud of her garden always. But for her it had bloomed for the last
time. Would the James Wickhams take as much pride in it? Somehow, she
fancied not. And she? Where would she be a year from now? A year! Where
would she be in another month?

The whole world, in a modest sense, would he hers to choose from. While
she had no definite notion as to the amount of her legacy, she had
understood that it would bring in sufficient income to keep her from the
necessity of seeking further employment. Probably something between two
and three hundred pounds a year. She had always longed to travel.
Italy, France, Germany, Spain, she would see them all. One could live
very reasonably in really good pensions abroad, she had been told.

And then, some day, after a few years of happy wandering, she might
adventure to that far-off Canada where her only brother was living the