scholars.

Miss Willis lived at home with her mother. They owned their small
house. The other expenses were defrayed from the daughter's salary;
hence strict economy was obligatory, and the expenditure of every
five-dollar bill was a matter of moment. Miss Willis's father had died
when she was a baby. The meagre sum of money which he left had
sufficed to keep his widow and only child from want until Marion's
majority. All had been spent except the house; but, as Miss Willis now
proudly reflected, she had become a breadwinner, and her mother's
declining years were shielded from poverty. They would be able to
manage famously until Sir Galahad arrived, and when he came one of the
joys of her surrender would be that her mother's old age would be
brightened by a few luxuries.

Glendale, as its name denotes, had been a rustic village. When Miss
Willis was engaged (to teach school, not to be married) it was a
thriving, bustling, overgrown, manufacturing town already yearning to
become a city. By the end of another five years Glendale had realized
its ambition, and Miss Willis was still a teacher in its crowded
grammar-school. How the years creep, yet how they fly, when one is
busy with regular, routine employment! The days are such a repetition
of each other that they sometimes seem very long, but when one pauses
and looks back one starts at the accumulation of departed time, and
deplores the swiftness of the seasons.

Five years had but slightly dimmed the freshness of Miss Willis's
charms. She was as comely as ever. She was a trifle stouter, a trifle
less girlish in manner, and only a trifle--what shall we call
it?--wilted in appearance. The close atmosphere of a school-room is