Mara was a girl who consciously would be controlled by a few simple motives rather than by impulses, circumstances or the influence of others. We have seen that loyalty, as she understood it, was her chief motive. Her love for parents she had never seen was profound, and all relating to them was sacred. To do what she believed would be pleasing to them, what would now reflect honor upon their memory, was her supreme duty. All other motives would be dominated by this pre-eminent one and all action guided by it. She felt that the effort to provide for her aunt, the one remaining member of her family, and to enable her to spend her remaining days in the congenial atmosphere of the past, would certainly be in accord with her parents' wishes. Then by natural sequence her sympathies went out to those whose fortunes, like her own, had been wrecked by the changes against which they could interpose only a helpless protest. In various ways she learned of those of her own class who had been disabled and impoverished, whose lives were stripped of the embroidery of pleasant little gratifications only permitted by a surplus of income. It gradually came to be a cherished solace after the labors of the morning, to carry to the sick and afflicted, dwelling in homes of faded gentility like her own, some delicacy made by her own hands. While these were received in the spirit in which they were brought, the girl's lovely, sympathetic face was far more welcome, and the orphan began to embody to those of the old regime the cause for which they all had suffered so much. Within this limited circle Mara was kindness and gentleness itself, beyond it cold and unapproachable. Occasionally some, with whom she had no sympathy, sought to patronize her. They intimated that they were willing to buy lavishily, but it was also evident that they wished their good-will appreciated and reciprocated in ways that excited the girl's scorn. In spite of her poverty and homely work, it was known that she was a favorite in the most aristocratic circle in the city, and there are always those ready to seek social recognition in many and devious ways. These pushing people represented to Mara the Northern element and leaven in the city, and she soon made it clear that there was an invisible line beyond which they could not pass. Their orders were either declined or scrupulously filled, if her time permitted, but with a quiet tact which was inflexible she warded off every approach which was not purely commercial. CHAPTER X MISS AINSLEY