The little Swiss clock on the mantel chimes musically. It is nine o’clock. But Tibby’s eyes are half-closed, and she sees beyond her own reflection the plain family room at the farm-house, with its bright rag-carpet on the floor and its chintz-covered chairs. She sees her gray-haired father dozing in his chair tilted back against the wall, with his hands clasped before him. She sees Tom sleeping, stretched out upon the old, green-covered lounge. She sees little Bess and Ted in their night-gowns scampering up the closed-in stairway to their beds. Ah, she is not there to give them their good-night kiss when they have repeated their “Now I lay me down to sleep.” She sees her father rise, yawning, and step heavily across the room to the old wooden clock in its niche in the wall, and she can even hear the creaking of the iron weights as he winds the clock for the night. She sees her own little bed with its high posts and white valances. She closes her eyes tightly to shut out the vision and the tears that stand ready to fall. Then she hears her father call, “Come, Tom, you sleepy lubber! Get you up and off to bed!” She knows how Tom will stagger to his feet and rub his leaden eyelids, and start in the wrong direction. Dear lad! It is harder to think of him than all the rest. But she has had her wish. She is in the great city, and they—Tom, Bess, father—are there at home where the old life will go on day by day, and she in this new life must be brave and—grateful. CHAPTER III THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE “I have succeeded in becoming acquainted with the lady in black,” remarked Elinor Wylie, a few days subsequent to the date of the beginning of this story, as, with her husband, she came slowly up from the dining-room and entered their private apartment. “Did I tell you?” “No, I think not. Do you find her as interesting as fancy painted her?” drawled Mr. Wylie languidly. “Yes, more so. At least, I find her very refined and cultured. She has surely been in better circumstances.” “Ah, the pity of it, in this world of ours!” replied Mr. Wylie, throwing himself into a luxurious armchair and shaking his head expressively. “It is the story common to the lives of too many Americans. One day we’re dining at Delmonico’s, the next, starving in a hovel. Ah, seductive, evanescent, elusive Fortune, why do we trifle with you? To me the pathos of life is epitomized in the words, ‘She has seen better days.’” “I have engaged her to sew for me.” “Indeed!” Mr. Wylie’s eyebrows were elevated quizzingly. “What has become of Madame Somers?”