"Certainly. That will give me time to go to the American Express office. I must see them about shipping your baggage. I'll come back for you in half an hour." He lifted his hat and went away. CHAPTER IV. The sound of the lawyer's retreating footsteps died away in the distance. Once more a heavy stillness settled down over the gallery. Left to herself, the young girl resumed working with increased vigor. As her brushes moved rapidly, touching places here and there, now seeking fresh color on the palette, now making some spot on the rapidly progressing canvas glow with rich tints, her movements gradually grew more or less mechanical. While her hand kept busy, her thoughts were elsewhere. She was sorry to leave Paris. Much that she held dear, her friends, the bohemian student life which she loved, she must now give up forever. A new world, new acquaintances claimed her. Yes, Mr. Ricaby was right. It was her duty to go back and do good with the fortune which fate had sent her. She would seek happiness by making others happy. She would use the money left by her father to alleviate the sufferings of the unfortunate. She would build model tenements, endow hospitals and homes for orphaned and crippled children. She would make that her life work. Her face flushed with pleasure as she planned out all that she could do. Mr. Ricaby should be her legal adviser. He would tell her how to invest her fortune to best advantage, so she might do all the good possible. It would reconcile her to leaving Paris if she could devote her life to trying to solve the social problem. Her thoughts reverted to her childhood days in America. She had a dim recollection of living in a great gloomy house in the outskirts of an ugly, smoky city. At night when she went to bed she could see in the distance tall chimneys belching flame, terrifying tongues of flame that reached almost to the sky. They lived very quietly and saw no one. Her father, reserved and uncommunicative, discouraged callers, and her mother, a French woman, not understanding the language very well, made no acquaintances among her neighbors. Then she went to the convent school where she was educated, and after that they moved to Paris and made a long stay with relatives of her mother. On the return to America they lived quietly for a time in New York, seeing absolutely no one, and it was at this period that she became seriously interested in Settlement work.