“Well, he saw that you didn’t miss it, after all!” said she, with a welcoming light for Julia in her sharp eyes, though she did not smile.  “Sit down!  I’ve been hearing nice things about you, my dear!  I said to Sally, ‘So there is something in old maids’ children, eh?’” Miss Toland chuckled; she was well pleased with her protegee.  Julia settled herself comfortably beside her.  She liked to watch the running gray water, and to feel the cold December wind in her face.  The thought of Mark was always with her, poor Mark! so much more in her heart dead than living!  But to-day his memory seemed only a part of the tender past; it was toward the future that her heart turned; she felt young and strong and full of hope.

In the new year Jim began to come pretty regularly to the settlement house.  Sometimes he stayed but for two minutes, never for more than ten, and usually, even if Julia was out, he left some little gift for her, a book or a magazine, flower seeds, or violets, or a box of candy.  She would glance up from the soiled and rumpled sewing of some small girl to find Jim smiling at her from the stage door, or come back from her little shopping round and have a moment’s chat with him on the steps.  She grew more and more silent, more and more self-contained, but her beauty deepened daily, and her eyes shone like blue stars.

“God, I will not believe it—­I cannot believe it!” said Julia, on her knees, at night, her hands pressed tight against her eyes.  “But I think he is beginning to love me!” And she walked in a strange dazzle of happiness, rejoicing in every sunny morning that, with its warmth and blueness and distant soft whistles from the bay, seemed to promise the spring, and rejoicing no less when rain beat against the windows of The Alexander, and the children rushed in upon her at three o’clock with raindrops in their hair and on their glowing cheeks.  The convent garden, in the February mornings, the assembly room, with late uncertain sunlight checking its floor in the long afternoons, the Colonial restaurant filled with lights and the odours of food at night, all these familiar things seemed strangely new and thrilling, and the arrival of the postman was, twice a day, a heart-shaking event.

In April Doctor Toland went on a fortnight’s trip to Mexico, and took his third daughter with him, in the undisguised hope of winning some small share of her confidence, and convincing her of his own disinterested affection.  Two days later Barbara telephoned her aunt the harrowing news of Sally’s elopement with Keith Borroughs, and Miss Toland went at once to Sausalito, taking Julia along.

They found the big house full of excitement.  Richie was with his mother, who had retired to her room and was tearful and hysterical; Ned and his wife had gone back after Christmas to the country town, where he held a small position under his father-in-law; and Jim was doing both his own work and that of his foster father for the time being, and could not be found by telephone; so Julia was received by Barbara and the two younger girls, who were not inclined to make light of the event.