"Three days--and already it seemed like a month! Then what will a month feel like? and two months?" she asked herself in a tremor of alarm. "It is all very well for Mardie to say, `Take one day at a time, and don't worry about the future.' She wouldn't find it so easy in my place! Bertha might send me a letter! I didn't expect her to write the first day she was at home, but she might have managed it the second, under the circumstances!" Miss Margaret was engaged with callers; the servants busy at their work. Mildred was at her wits' end to know what to do with herself. She flattened her face against the window, and stared gloomily down the drive. "Two more visitors coming to see Mardie. That means another half-hour at the least before I can go downstairs to have tea. An old lady, and a young one in a light dress, and a hat with pink roses. She doesn't look a bit nice!" pronounced Mildred in critical spirit; "I shall dress much better than that when I am grown up. Her boots are awful!--old, shabby things beneath a grand dress. I would rather spend less on finery and have respectable feet. The old lady is as broad as she is long; her bonnet is crooked! Why doesn't the girl put it straight before they go into the house? I wouldn't allow my mother to be so untidy! She looks fearfully hot!" Mildred stared at the old lady and her daughter until a sweep of the drive hid them from sight, and felt more lonely than ever when they had disappeared. For ten minutes or more not another soul could be seen, then the postman came briskly trotting towards the house. Mildred heard the peal of the bell, and became fired with curiosity to know whether any of the letters were for herself. Probably, almost certainly; for this was the post from the south, in which direction almost all the girls had their homes. There might be one from Bertha among the number. How aggravating to know that they were lying in the letter-box at the present moment, and to be obliged to wait until the visitors took their departure before Mardie could come out and unlock it.