She was too grateful to repine or to allow this shadow to oppress her spirit. Its sole effect was to stimulate her energies, to make her fertile in resources to counteract this disability, and painstaking in attention to her duties in the hope of a small increase in salary. She kept a close watch on Henrietta's voice, and put her on her own guard against its piercing quality; she organized a small dancing class from among the children in Lincoln Chambers for one evening in the week, and from her own past experience essayed their instruction in waltzing and social decorum. Also, on Sunday afternoons, she would often lure Emil and Henrietta to the new Art Museum and give them the opportunity which her own youth had lacked to discern artistic form and color, and to acquire inspiration from world-famous or exemplary paintings and sculpture. Then there suddenly came to her as treasure-trove a new fund to be drawn on for such purposes. Her employer, scanning the field of philanthropy by the light of his own professional experience, had realized that there was need in Benham of a legal aid society--that is, of an organization which would defray the charges of a firm of attorneys to whom people in utter distress, without means, and with petty but desperate grievances in which busy lawyers could not afford to interest themselves, could apply for succor. When it appeared that the clerical duties incident to the fund collected for this charity must be performed by some suitable person, it occurred to Gordon Perry--he had been seeking some such occasion--that Mrs. Stuart would make an admirable secretary and treasurer, especially as he intended that the society should pay two hundred dollars for the annual service. Constance's heart throbbed with delight at the announcement, and the first fifty dollars was devoted by her to the treatment of Henrietta's irregular front teeth. Would she be able some day to send Emil to college? Might she hope that her daughter would grow to be thoroughly a lady, not merely a smart, self-sufficient woman, but a gracious, refined, exquisite spirit like Mrs. Randolph Wilson? In her outlook for her children's future, she had become aware that she had set up two individuals for emulation: the woman whose æsthetic Christianity had enriched her life, and the man whose unaffected intelligence and vigor offered to her daily observation an example of honorable modern living. To lift her own flesh and blood above the rut of mediocre aims and attainments was now the ambition of her soul, and she was ready to strain every nerve to bring this to pass. [Illustration: Constance would find her in possession at Lincoln Chambers]