weeks and months and years, and there would be boys and girls--their
children. And the years would go swiftly as the days and there would
be the weddings of their sons and daughters and then--the children of
their children.

And the woman who that night knew that she was a woman--the woman
whose heart, as she sat alone before the fire, was even as an empty
room--a room that is furnished and ready but without a tenant--what,
this woman asked herself, would the years bring her? The years of her
childhood and girlhood were past. What of her womanhood years that
were to come?

There are many doors in the life of these modern days at which a woman
may knock with hope of being admitted; and this woman, as she sat
alone before her fire that night, paused before them all--all save
two. Two doors she saw but did not pause before; and _one_ of
them was idleness and pleasure. And one other door there is that
stands open wide so that there is no need to knock for admittance.
Before this wide open door the woman paused a long time. It is older
than the other doors. It is very, very, old. Since the beginning it
has never been closed. But though it stood open so wide and there was
no need to knock for admittance, still the woman could not enter for
she was alone. No woman may enter that old, old, open door, alone.

Three times before she had stood before that ancient door and had been
urged to cross the threshold; but always she had hesitated, had held
back, and turned away. She wondered if always she would hesitate, if
always she would turn away; or would some one come with whom she could
gladly, joyously, confidently, cross the threshold. She could not say.
She could only wait. And while she waited she would knock at one of