him or he feeling of duty toward them.

It was not until eighteen months after her father's
death, when the total capital was sunk to less than
fifteen thousand dollars, that Mildred awakened to the
truth of their plight. A few months at most, and
they would have to give up that beautiful house which
had been her home all her life. She tried to grasp
the meaning of the facts as her intelligence presented
them to her, but she could not. She had no practical
training whatever. She had been brought up as a rich
man's child, to be married to a rich man, and never to
know anything of the material details of life beyond
what was necessary in managing servants after the
indifferent fashion of the usual American woman of the
comfortable classes. She had always had a maid; she
could not even dress herself properly without the maid's
assistance. Life without a maid was inconceivable;
life without servants was impossible.

She wandered through the house, through the
grounds. She said to herself again and again: ``We
have got to give up all this, and be miserably poor--
with not a servant, with less than the tenement people
have.'' But the words conveyed no meaning to her.
She said to herself again and again: ``I must rouse
myself. I must do something. I must--must--
must!'' But she did not rouse, because there was nothing
to rouse. So far as practical life was concerned
she was as devoid of ideas as a new-born baby.