mother took advantage of his absence for his religiously
observed daily constitutional to say to her:

``I hope you didn't think I was behind him in what
he said to you about going away?''

Mildred had not thought so, but in her mother's
guilty tone and guiltier eyes she now read that her
mother wished her to go.

``It'd be awful for me to be left here alone with him,''
wailed her mother insincerely. ``Of course we've got
no money, and beggars can't be choosers. But it'd just
about kill me to have you go.''

Mildred could not speak.

``I don't know a thing about money,'' Mrs. Presbury
went on. ``Your father always looked after everything.''
She had fallen into the way of speaking of
her first husband as part of some vague, remote past,
which, indeed, he had become for her. ``This man''--
meaning Presbury--``has only about five thousand a
year, as you know. I suppose that's as small as he says
it is. I remember our bills for one month used to be as
much or more than that.'' She waved her useless, pretty
hands helplessly. ``I don't see HOW we are to get on,
Mildred!''

Her mother wished her to go! Her mother had fallen