Mrs. Scott thought Eleanor's story poor and called attention to the fact that she had taken Dr. Green's office as a model for untidiness, at which he laughed immoderately. He said that Eleanor might use himself or his office as a model at any time or to any extent she wished. "Undoubtedly she has some kind of a pull," was Mrs. Scott's next comment. "Pull?" repeated Dr. Scott nervously. "Yes, influence over the editor," explained Mrs. Scott, "pull" in this sense being a new usage adopted from Walter. "Perhaps a financial influence. They seem to have money." Thomasina Davis, when she opened her copy of "Willard's Magazine," grew pale; then she put it aside and went to walk up and down her garden. It was a long time before serenity returned to her countenance. Later in the day she went to the Bents' to congratulate Eleanor. It was probable, she thought, that no one else in Waltonville but Dr. Scott would say anything to her. Eleanor looked ill and troubled, not as one would expect a rising author to look, and her mother looked even more distressed. They sat on the porch with Mrs. Bent watching her daughter anxiously, from the background, the dark circles under her eyes telling of sleepless nights. "You ought to take Eleanor away for a vacation," advised Thomasina. "There is no place superior to Waltonville, but you have to go away sometimes to realize it. Perhaps she would like to go somewhere with me." To Thomasina's astonishment Eleanor burst into tears, and rising, overwhelmed with mortification, went indoors. "She ain't very well," explained Mrs. Bent, who was overwhelmed also. "Please do excuse her, Miss Davis. She has studied hard and she has practiced too much since she got her piano. That is, she did, but she don't now." "Perhaps she ought to see Dr. Green." "Perhaps." But Mrs. Bent's forehead did not smooth itself out at the suggestion. Her anxieties tightened about her daily like a coil of wire long ago flung out and now being wound closer and closer. Thomasina said nothing to Mrs. Lister about Basil's story. They had never talked about him, for though they had been intimate companions, Mary Alcestis had shut her out with every one else from her grief. She believed that Thomasina had thought even when they were children that she did not love him enough, was not always amiable with him. Not love Basil! It was because she had loved him so dearly, so desperately, that she had tried to watch over him, to lead him, to admonish him. A woman who had never been really in love, who had never married, who had never had children, who had always maintained even toward Dr. Lister an air of mental equality, could not be expected to know the height and depth of love which Mary Alcestis knew. Thomasina, for all her bright mind and all her knowledge of many things, had had little experience of life's realities.