The clock on the mantelpiece began to strike, and she looked up eagerly; but when she saw that it was only three, she turned away petulantly, almost like a spoiled child who cannot bear to wait. Her eye fell on the desk with an unfinished letter lying on it. With her usual impulsive swiftness she sat herself down and hastily ran over what she had written. "Dear Margaret," the letter began, "it was a surprise, of course, to hear from you again, for it must be three or four years since last we corresponded. But your kindly inquiries were very welcome, and it did me good to feel that there was a woman really interested in me, even though she was thousands of miles away. It is with a glow of gratitude that I think of you and your goodness to me when I was suddenly widowed. You took pity on my loneliness then, and you can't guess how often I have longed for a friend like you in these last years of bitter solitude--a friend I could go to for sympathy, a friend I could unburden my heart to." Having read this almost at a glance, she seized her pen and continued: "I feel as if I simply must talk out to somebody--and so I'm going to write to you, sure you will not misunderstand me, for your insight and your perceptions were always as kindly as they were keen. "You ask me what I am going to do. And I answer you frankly. I am going to marry a man I don't love--and who doesn't love me. So we shall swindle each other! "I can see your shocked look as you read this--but you don't know what has brought me to it. I've come to the end of my tether at last. My money has nearly all gone. I don't know how I can support myself--and so I'm going to let somebody support me, that's all! "The settlement of poor George's affairs has dragged along all these years, and it was only last December that I got the few hundred dollars that were coming to me. I took the cash and I came here to New York to see if something wouldn't turn up. What--well, I didn't know and I didn't care. I just hoped that the luck might change at last--and perhaps I did dream of a Prince Charming at the end of the perspective; not a mere boy, of course, not the pretty little puppet Cinderella married, but a Prince Charming of middle age, with his hair dashed with gray at the temples, a man of position and sound judgment and good taste, who might still find his ideal in a thin little widow like me. Of course the dream hasn't come true; it's only the nightmares that are realized. I haven't seen any Prince Charmings, either pretty little puppets or mature men of the world. I guess the race is extinct, like the dodo. At any rate, nothing has turned up, and the winter is over, and my money is nearly all gone.