Was it the poverty of home she feared, then? Surely not, for poverty was a condition quite as much with her elsewhere--rather more with her elsewhere, for among strangers it was impossible to practice those useful little economies of ragged underwear and worn-out shoes which in the privacy of home-life made an occasional extravagance possible. Joan rather looked forward to the time when she no longer need be on dress-parade, so to speak, at every hour of the day. "If I wear cheap nightgowns, I can buy myself a good hat," was her thought--a thought which may be said to sum up the philosophy of the Darcy family. And although it seems customary among novelists to gage the refinement of their heroines by the daintiness of their taste in underlinen--no matter if her outer wear be sackcloth and ashes, the lingerie of a true fiction lady is invariably above reproach--one would like to submit that an almost equal refinement may be indicated by the present heroine's determination to make as brave a showing as possible before her world with as little strain as possible upon her father's income.... Was it her mother's absence she feared then--still? Forewarned, Joan resolutely kept back the nervous tears that threatened to rise again at the thought of her mother; and she faced the possibility calmly. During the summer before, alone with her father and Ellen, Joan had been given plenty of time to get used to her mother's absence. Indeed, it seemed to her suddenly that during the several years previous she had been given time to get used to her mother's absence. It was as if Mary Darcy, knowing that the hand of death was upon her, had deliberately, gradually, withdrawn herself from the child she loved, in order to make the final separation easier. "That would have been like Mother," said Joan, nodding.