by! Good heavens--was there danger that my life would become stark and empty too? I had chosen the mountain trail. Had I lost then the joy and the comfort of the nestling house and curling smoke? There were still interesting contracts of course, engrossing work. There was still the success of Van de Vere's to live for, but the ecstasy had all faded by the time I first realized that I was no longer a young girl. Mrs. Sewall never came again to the shop after that single call. I was told she was in Europe. I never heard from her. Her son--poor Breck--had died at sea when a huge and luxurious ocean liner had tragically plunged into fathoms of water. I learned that an English girl had become Mrs. Sewall's companion. They were occupying the house in England. No doubt they were very happy together. Sometimes it would sweep over me with distressing reality that nobody really needed me--Breck, or Mrs. Sewall, or self-sufficient Bob in his beloved West. Bob was fast becoming nothing but a memory to me. If I thought of him at all it was as if my mind gazed at him through the wrong end of a pair of opera glasses. He seemed miles away. He must have come to New York occasionally but he didn't look me up. I heard of his activities indirectly through Lucy and Will. With the help of the women voters he had succeeded in cleaning out a board of aldermen, and now the women wanted him to run for mayor. This all interested me, but it didn't make me long for Bob. I wasn't conscious of wanting anything specific. My discontent was simply a vague, empty feeling, a good deal like being hungry, when no food you can call to mind seems to be what you want. Mrs. Scot-Williams of her own accord suggested a vacation of two months for me. I know she must have observed that my spirits had fallen below normal. Mrs. Scot-Williams said she was afraid I had been working too steadily, and needed a change. I was looking a little tired. She invited me to go to Japan with her, starting in mid-July. We'd pick up some antiques for the shop in the East. It would do me a world of good. Perhaps Mrs. Scot-Williams was right. Such a complete change might help me to regain my old poise. I told her I would go with pleasure. However, before I ever got started my loneliness culminated one dismal night, two days before the Fourth of July. I had been away for two weeks with Mrs. Scot-Williams on a suffrage campaign, combining a little business en route. Mrs. Scot-Williams had had to return in time to celebrate the holiday with her college-boy son and some friends of his at her summer place on Long Island.