place in their clock-department. Seems they heart of him through
a German friend of his that's settled out there. It's a splendid
opening, and if he gives satisfaction they'll raise him at the end
of the year."

She paused, flushed with the importance of the situation,
which seemed to lift her once for all above the dull level of her
former life.

"Then you'll have to go?" came at last from Ann Eliza.

Evelina stared. "You wouldn't have me interfere with his
prospects, would you?"

"No--no. I on'y meant--has it got to be so soon?"

"Right away, I tell you--next week. Ain't it awful?" blushed
the bride.

Well, this was what happened to mothers. They bore it, Ann
Eliza mused; so why not she? Ah, but they had their own chance
first; she had had no chance at all. And now this life which she
had made her own was going from her forever; had gone, already, in
the inner and deeper sense, and was soon to vanish in even its
outward nearness, its surface-communion of voice and eye. At that
moment even the thought of Evelina's happiness refused her its
consolatory ray; or its light, if she saw it, was too remote to
warm her. The thirst for a personal and inalienable tie, for pangs
and problems of her own, was parching Ann Eliza's soul: it seemed
to her that she could never again gather strength to look her