Mrs. Curtis nodded understandingly when Helen bowed to her admirer's wishes, and led Virginia into the house. "It is nice of you to come and see me again so soon," she told the girl when they were seated in the front room; "especially after the way I must have tired you with my troubles and drowned you with my tears." Her forced gaiety could not deceive one to whom she had opened her heart. The marks of trouble and anxiety showed too plainly in her face. Virginia saw the opportunity to transmit the good tidings she had brought. Its very bigness embarrassed her. "I have some good news for you," she cried, and abruptly thrust the letter towards the older woman, her eyes big and tender with the joy of her message. "There!" she stammered. "Read--read that, please." Mrs. Curtis took the letter from Mrs. Henderson and began to peruse it. It seemed to Virginia that she would never finish. At last Mrs. Curtis turned towards the girl. Her face was pale and the stress of her emotion weakened her. "I can't thank you," she whispered in a queer strained voice. Suddenly her strength swept back to her. Under the force of the joy which enveloped her she spoke in a dead monotone, staring ahead of her with unseeing eyes. "My Charles will walk and play like other boys. In a few weeks--perhaps before Thanksgiving Day--he can throw aside his crutch." Virginia, agitated by the intenseness of the other's feelings, watched in silence. Mrs. Curtis had forgotten her visitor now. She was thinking aloud. "What a happy day it will be for Joe and Charles and me," she murmured,--"the happiest since my husband died." The gladness of the other thrilled the girl. Like a flash there came a change in Mrs. Curtis's mood. Her joy came into conflict with a defiant pride. Her face became cold and hard. "It's charity," she wailed, "just plain charity. Am I a beggar now?" She turned furiously upon Virginia, transformed by passion, "If my husband had lived--if I, a weak woman, had been given a fair chance to make an honest living in this land of the free," she sneered, "I too would ride in my automobile in silks and diamonds and extend charity to the poor. If there were justice among men I would not be in a position where people could offer me charity." A bewildered Virginia listened timidly as the woman, almost beside herself, went on, "There is no justice--there is no right," Her eyes seemed ablaze to the startled girl. She thrust her arms above her head. "The wicked prosper and the good are ruined. It's all wrong--wickedly wrong," she screamed and, rushing into an adjoining room, cast herself across the bed, sobbing convulsively.