"A wonderful uplifting influence," Mr. Williams called her, and refused to say anything, even when directly approached, as to "the facts" of her trouble. "It is an old story," he would say. "She bears up wonderfully. She sacrifices her life rather than her principles." To Vivian, sitting now on a hassock at the lady's feet and looking up at her with adoring eyes, she was indeed a star, a saint, a cloud of mystery. She reached out a soft hand, white, slender, delicately kept, wearing one thin gold ring, and stroked the girl's smooth hair. Vivian seized the hand and kissed it, blushing as she did so. "You foolish child! Don't waste your young affection on an old lady like me." "Old! You! You don't look as old as I do this minute!" said the girl with hushed intensity. "Life wears on you, I'm afraid, my dear.... Do you ever hear from him?" To no one else, not even to Susie, could Vivian speak of what now seemed the tragedy of her lost youth. "No," said she. "Never now. He did write once or twice--at first." "He writes to his aunt, of course?" "Yes," said Vivian. "But not often. And he never--says anything." "I understand. Poor child! You must be true, and wait." And the lady turned the thin ring on her finger. Vivian watched her in a passion of admiring tenderness. "Oh, you understand!" she exclaimed. "You understand!" "I understand, my dear," said Mrs. St. Cloud. When Vivian reached her own gate she leaned her arms upon it and looked first one way and then the other, down the long, still street. The country was in sight at both ends--the low, monotonous, wooded hills that shut them in. It was all familiar, wearingly familiar. She had known it continuously for such part of her lifetime as was sensitive to landscape effects, and had at times a mad wish for an earthquake to change the outlines a little. The infrequent trolley car passed just then and Sue Elder joined her, to take the short cut home through the Lane's yard. "Here you are," she said cheerfully, "and here are the books." Vivian thanked her. "Oh, say--come in after supper, can't you? Aunt Rella's had another letter from Mort." Vivian's sombre eyes lit up a little. "How's he getting on? In the same business he was last year?" she asked with an elaborately cheerful air. Morton had seemed to change occupations oftener than he wrote letters. "Yes, I believe so. I guess he's well. He never says much, you know. I don't think it's good for him out there--good for any boy." And Susie looked quite the older sister. "What are they to do? They can't stay here." "No, I suppose not--but we have to." "Dr. Bellair didn't," remarked Vivian. "I like her--tremendously, don't you?" In truth, Dr. Bellair was already a close second to Mrs. St. Cloud in the girl's hero-worshipping heart.