This evening as she paced the muddy streets, Vanna's thoughts were engaged with half a dozen details of her busy life. From ten o'clock in the morning she had been hurrying from house to house, yet had not been able to finish the list with which she had started the day. More people had been waiting for her, longing for her coming, than she had been able to visit; the memory of grateful words sounded in her ears. She was returning home to rest and ease, or, if she pleased, to go forth in search of amusement and distraction of mind. For the hundredth time she told herself that she was one of the fortunates of earth; and for the hundredth time "_But I am alone_" answered the woman's heart, and could find no solace to fill that void. Vanna threw back her head with the quick, defiant gesture which had grown habitual in years of struggle. This was the direction in which thought could not be allowed to turn, the direction of earthquake and upheaval; the death of peace. Even as the pain cramped her heart she had decided on her medicine. "I will go to see my baby! There is still half an hour before her bedtime." Little Vanna, Jean's youngest daughter, had been brought up by her parents to consider herself as equally the child of themselves and "Mother Wanna" and had shown herself delightfully eager to avail herself of the privilege. "You've gotten only one mummie; I'se two!" was one of the earliest boasts by which she endeavoured to demonstrate her superiority over her sisters. She was a delightful little person, pretty, as were all Jean's children, with her mother's dark, cloud-like hair, and her father's hazel eyes; affectionate, strong-willed, and already, at five years old, amusingly conscious of the powers of a dimpled cheek and a beguiling lisp, to gain for her the ambition of the minute. Jean had faithfully kept her promise of allowing her friend to adopt the small Vanna financially as well as mentally; and if it was a delightful task to purchase her small garments, it was still more thrilling to plan for years ahead. Little Vanna must have an education to fit her for her place in life. Her talents from the beginning should receive the most skilful training; she should be taken abroad to learn languages in the only way in which they can be truly mastered; if her attainments justified she should go on to College; if she preferred a social life, she should enjoy it to the full. Privately Vanna cherished the hope that her fledgling might develop not into a grave student but into a natural, light-hearted girl, whose happiness might atone to her in some wise for her own blighted youth. All that love, and money, and the most careful forethought could do, should be done to secure for the second Vanna an unclouded girlhood. In imagination she pictured her in the various stages of growth; the schoolgirl coming home from school, to be taken for holiday trips abroad; the gayest, least responsible of