To Shadyville she had always seemed a brilliant figure; now, as a successful professional singer, she was a dazzling one. Even Sheila was a little awed by her, although the two had kept up their childhood's friendship during all these years of separation and of such diverse interests. Every now and then Charlotte descended on Shadyville for a brief visit to her parents, and then she invariably took up with Sheila their dropped threads and wove a new flower into the pattern of their affection. On this occasion she came to Sheila with more than her usual warmth, divining what a grief Mrs. Caldwell's death must have been to her, and she watched her friend, as the days passed, with an increasing solicitude. To all appearances everything was well with the Kent household. Sheila and Ted seemed to be on the best of terms; Eric had grown into a fine, healthy, handsome little lad, particularly fond of his proud mother; prosperity, as Shadyville measured it, fairly shone from the charming and well-ordered little house. Certainly all appeared to be well with Sheila, yet Charlotte was not satisfied about her. Six months had passed since Mrs. Caldwell's death, and though Charlotte allowed for the sincerity and depth of Sheila's mourning, she rejected a sorrow already somewhat softened by time as sufficient cause for the change she found in Sheila. There was something else, something of an altogether different nature, that was responsible for the hunger of Sheila's eyes, the restlessness of her manner. Charlotte remembered, with a rush of indignation, Sheila's unfulfilled ambitions, her wasted gift. That was the trouble; of course that baffled gift of Sheila's was the trouble. And something must be done about it. She was with Sheila when she came to this conclusion, and immediately she acted on it, impulsive, decisive creature that she was. "What of your writing, Sheila dear? I can't recall your speaking of it to me for a long, long while." "Oh--_that's_ over!" replied Sheila, with unhappy emphasis. "But why?" It was a warm May afternoon and they were sitting on Sheila's veranda. Out on the lawn Eric and another boy of his own age frolicked about like a couple of animated puppies. Sheila pointed to them: "You remember what Mrs. North said--that a woman couldn't be both mother and artist?" "I told you that wasn't true!" "It has been true for me, Charlotte." "It needn't be now. While Eric was a baby, it may have been true for you, but there's no reason in the world why it should be now." "Well, it _is_ true for me now--it will be true for me always. And yet----"