One permanent investment brought Mrs. Baron a few hundreds annually, and Mr. Baron drew a modest salary from a position with the city, which he had held many years without complaint or lapses. But the fortune that used to be theirs had vanished mysteriously in trips to Europe and in the keeping up of those social obligations which they could not disregard. The formal social activities of the mansion had become wholly things of the past, and within the past year or two the visits of old friends, now living out in commodious new residential districts, had become few and far between. Really it seemed that the Barons had been forgotten. Flora, looking suddenly into her mother’s brooding, fine old eyes, and quite accurately reading the thought that was beyond them, sighed and arose. “It’s the neighborhood,” she said--quite ambiguously, it would have seemed, since not a word had passed between them for nearly half an hour. But Mrs. Baron responded: “Do you think so?” And her face stiffened with new resolve not to repine, even if the currents of life had drawn away from them and left them desolate. Then an automobile drew up in front of the mansion and Flora’s face brightened. “They’ve come!” she said. “I won’t be gone long, mother,” and she hurried away to her room. A moment later Mrs. Baron heard her going down the stairs and closing the front door. She stood at the window and watched Flora get into the shining electric coupé of the McKelvey girls. She caught a glimpse of the McKelvey girls’ animated faces, and then the elegant little vehicle moved away. Still she stood at the window. Her face was rather proud and defiant. And then after a time it became, suddenly, quite blank. There was Victor coming up the stone steps into the yard, and he was leading a waif by the hand. Only the word “waif” did not occur to Mrs. Baron. “Well!” she exclaimed, her body rigid, her eyes staring out from beneath pugnacious brows. “Victor and an impossible little female!” CHAPTER III MRS. BARON DECIDES As Baron felt for his key he stood an instant and surveyed the other side of the street, up and down the block. A frown gathered on his forehead. Bonnie May, keyed to a very high pitch, noted that frowning survey of the line of buildings across the way. “Something wrong?” she asked. “No, certainly not,” responded Baron; but to himself he was admitting that there was something very wrong indeed. It was the neighborhood. This was his conclusion, just as it had been Flora’s. He had become conscious of the frowning, grimy fronts; the windows which were like eyes turning baleful glances upon the thoroughfare. The grass-plots, the flower-beds, the suitable carpets spread for the feet of spring--what had become of them?