She and her adopted mother were the best of friends. Anna regarded
Mrs. Herrick as one of the noblest of women, and her dutiful
submission and anxiety to please her benefactress secretly surprised
Malcolm.

Mrs. Herrick was not a demonstrative woman, but in her own way she
was very good to Anna; she encouraged her to call her mother, bought
her pretty dresses and ornaments such as girls loved, but there
Anna's list of privileges was at an end. It never struck Mrs.
Herrick that she had simply no life of her own--that at seventeen or
eighteen a girl craves for congenial companionship, pleasant
occupation, and a fair amount of amusement.

When Anna was liberated from the schoolroom, she would have liked to
go to picture-galleries, attend concerts, and mix with interesting
people; in spite of her shyness and gentleness, she had plenty of
mind and character, and Malcolm had already cultivated her artistic
tastes. One summer, indeed, they had gone abroad, and Malcolm had
been with them, and for two months Anna felt they had been in the
anteroom of Paradise.

"The summer we spent in Switzerland and in the Austrian Tyrol," were
words perpetually on Anna's lips. Poor child, she little guessed, as
she built up wonderful castles in the air, that it would be long
before she had such a holiday again.

It was an evil moment for Anna when she volunteered to learn
typewriting, that she might help her adopted mother; from that day
she became the willing slave bound at the chariot wheels of a good-
natured despot. No amount of work tired Mrs. Herrick; she had the