finality that marked all her words and decisions--a finality
against which it was seldom of any avail to struggle. People,
who knew, rarely attempted it; strangers occasionally did, misled
by the deceit of appearances.

Isabella Spencer was a wisp of a woman, with a pale, pretty face,
uncertainly-colored, long-lashed grayish eyes, and great masses
of dull, soft, silky brown hair. She had delicate aquiline
features and a small, babyish red mouth. She looked as if a
breath would sway her. The truth was that a tornado would hardly
have caused her to swerve an inch from her chosen path.

For a moment Rachel looked rebellious; then she yielded, as she
generally did in all differences of opinion with her mother. It
was not worth while to quarrel over the comparatively unimportant
matter of Aunt Jane's invitation. A quarrel might be inevitable
later on; Rachel wanted to save all her resources for that. She
gave her shoulders a shrug, and wrote Aunt Jane's name down on
the wedding list in her large, somewhat untidy handwriting--a
handwriting which always seemed to irritate her mother. Rachel
never could understand this irritation. She could never guess
that it was because her writing looked so much like that in a
certain packet of faded letters which Mrs. Spencer kept at the
bottom of an old horsehair trunk in her bedroom. They were
postmarked from seaports all over the world. Mrs. Spencer never
read them or looked at them; but she remembered every dash and
curve of the handwriting.

Isabella Spencer had overcome many things in her life by the
sheer force and persistency of her will. But she could not get