"Of course, Harry's education must come before everything else--even Oliver realizes that. Do you know, I've hardly bought a match for ten years that I haven't stopped to ask myself if it would take anything from Harry's education. That's why I've gone as shabby as this almost ever since he was born--that and my longing to give the girls a few pretty things." "You haven't bought a dress for yourself since I can remember. I should think you would wear your clothes out making them over." The look in Virginia's face showed that the recollection Susan had invoked was not entirely a pleasant one. "I've done with as little as I could," she answered. "Only once was I really extravagant, and that was when I bought a light blue silk which I didn't have made up until years afterwards when it was dyed black. Dyed things never hold their own," she concluded pensively. "You are too unselfish--that is your only fault," said Susan impulsively. "I hope they appreciate all you have been to them." "Oh, they appreciate me," returned Virginia with a laugh. "Harry does, anyhow." "I believe Harry is your darling, Jinny." "I try not to make any difference in my feeling--they are all the best children that ever lived--but--Susan, I wouldn't breathe this to anybody on earth but you--I can't help thinking that Harry loves me more than the others do. He--he has so much more patience with me. The girls sometimes laugh at me because I am old-fashioned and behind the times, and I can see that it annoys them because I am ignorant of things which they seem to have been born knowing." "But it was for their sake that you let yourself go--you gave up everything else for them from the minute that they were born." A tear shone in Virginia's eye, and Susan knew, without having it put into words, that a wound somewhere in that gentle heart was still hurting. "I'd like to slap them!" she thought fiercely, and then she said aloud with a manner of cheerful conviction: "You are a great deal too good for them, Jinny, and some day they will know it." A longing came over her to take the thin little figure in her arms and shake back into her something of the sparkle and the radiance of her girlhood. Why did beauty fade? Why did youth grow middle-aged? Above all, why did love and sacrifice so often work their own punishment? CHAPTER II THE PRICE OF COMFORT