The Liberry Teacher sat silent, her eyes on her slim hands, that were roughened and reddened by constant hurried washings to get off the dirt of the library books. It was true--a good deal of it, anyhow. And one thing they had not said was true also: her sunniness and accuracy and strength, her stock-in-trade, were wearing thin under the pressure of too long hours and too hard work and too few personal interests. Her youth was worn down. And--marriage? What chance of love and marriage had she, a working-girl alone, too poor to see anything of the class of men she would be willing to marry? She had not for years spent six hours with a man of her own kind and age. She had not even been specially in love, that she could remember, since she was grown up. She did not feel much, now, as if she ever would be. All that she had to give up in taking this offer was her freedom, such as it was--and those fluttering perhapses that whisper such pleasant promises when you are young. But, then, she wouldn't be young so _very_ much longer. Should she--she put it to herself crudely--should she wait long, hard, closed-in years in the faith that she would learn to be absolutely contented, or that some man she could love would come to the cheap boarding-house, or the little church she attended occasionally when she was not too tired, fall in love with her work-dimmed looks at sight, and--marry her? It had not happened all these years while her girlhood had been more attractive and her personality more untired. There was scarcely a chance in a hundred for her of a kind lover-husband and such dear picture-book children as she had seen Eva Atkinson convoying. Well--her mind suddenly came up against the remembrance, as against a sober fact, that in her passionate wishings of yesterday she had not wished for a lover-husband, nor for children. She had asked for a husband who would give her money, and leisure to be rested and pretty, and--a rose-garden! And here, apparently, was her wish uncannily fulfilled. "Well, what are you going to do about it?" inquired the Destinies with their traditional indifference. "We can't wait all night!" She lifted her head and cast an almost frightened look at the De Guenthers, waiting courteously for her decision. In reply to the look, Mr. De Guenther began giving her details about the money, and the leisure time, and the business terms of the contract generally. She listened attentively. All that--for a little guardianship, a little kindness, and the giving-up of a little piece of life nobody wanted and a few little hopes and dreams! Phyllis laughed, as she always did when there were big black problems to be solved. "After all, it's fairly usual," she said. "I heard last week of a woman who left money along with her pet dog, very much the same way." "Did you? Did you, dear?" asked Mrs. De Guenther, beaming. "Then you think you will do it?"