To her surprise, the gray eyes filled with tears, and in her effort to wink them back Judith did not reply for a moment.  Then she answered, lightly, “Yes; it would be a golden opportunity if I could only afford to accept, but the wolf is still at the door, Cousin Barbara.  It has stood in the way of everything I ever longed to do.  Even when a child I used to hear so much about it that I thought it was a veritable flesh-and-blood wolf.  Many a night I slipped out of bed and peered through the curtain, all a-shiver.  I wanted to see if its fiery eyeballs were really watching at the door.  I wanted to see them if they were there, and yet was terrified to peep out for fear they were.  Even now it seems more than a mere figure of speech.  Often I dream of having a hand-to-hand struggle with it, but I always conquer it in the end—­in my dreams,” she added, with a gay little laugh.  “And that is a good omen.”

That cheery laugh was the key-note of Judith’s character, Miss Barbara thought.  All her life she had taken the pinch of poverty bravely for the sake of her invalid mother and the three younger sisters whom she was now helping through school.  Gradually she had shouldered the heavy responsibilities laid upon her, until she had settled down to a routine of duty, almost hopeless in its monotony.  Miss Barbara noted with keen eyes that a careworn look had become the habitual expression of the sweet girlish face, and she sat wishing with all her heart that she were something herself besides a poorly paid little music teacher with the wolf lurking at her own door.  As she wound the basting threads on a spool she planned the rose-coloured future Judith should have if it were only in her power to give it.

Judith must have felt the unspoken sympathy, for presently she burst forth:  “If I could only go away, just once, and have a real good time, like other girls, just once, while I am young enough to enjoy it, I wouldn’t ask anything more.  I’ve never been ten miles outside of Westbrooke, and I’m sure no one ever longed to travel more than I. I never have any company of my own age.  Our old set is all gone, and my friends are either elderly people or the school-children who come to see the girls.  And they all are so absorbed in the trivial village happenings and neighbourhood gossip.

“What I want is to meet people out in the world who really do things,—­men like Mr. Avery, for instance; Daisy is always entertaining distinguished strangers, artists and authors and musicians.  Friendship with such cultured, interesting people would broaden the horizon of my whole life.  I have a feeling that if I could once get away, it would somehow break the ice, and things would be different ever after.”  Then she added, with a tinge of bitterness that rarely crept into her voice, “I might as well plan to go to the moon.  The round-trip ticket alone, without the sleeping-car berth, would be at least forty dollars, wouldn’t it?”