But all his young fire could not touch her.  He could only win an occasional troubled glance.

“I want to stay here a long, long time, you know, Mark—­if I can.  I want to read things and study things.  I want to be let alone.  It’ll be years before I want to marry!” Julia raised her anxious, harassed eyes to his.  “I don’t really think of men or of marriage at all,” said she.

“Well, that’s all right, darling,” Mark said, smiling down at her, a little touched.  “I’m going to be sent up to Sacramento for a while; I’ll not worry you.  But see here, if I go back to the house with you again, do I get a kiss?”

Julia gave him a grave smile, and let him follow her into the settlement house.  But Mark did not get his kiss, for Miss Toland was there, and a group of eager club girls who had something to arrange for a meeting the following night.  Mark left the lady of his delight staidly discussing the relative merits of lemonade and gingersnaps and two pounds of “broken mixed” candy, as evening refreshments, and carried away a troubled heart.  He wrote Julia, at least twice a week, shyly affectionate and honestly egotistical letters, but it was some months before he saw her again.

Julia’s visit to her grandparents, through which Mark had been able to trace her, had taken place some days before, on a certain Wednesday afternoon.  Suddenly, after the daily three o’clock sewing class had had its meeting in the big hall, the thought had come to her that she must see her own people.  It was a still autumn afternoon, a little chilly, and Julia, setting forth, felt small relish for her errand.

Her grandmother’s house presented a dingy, discouraging front.  Julia twisted the familiar old bell, and got the familiar old odours of carbolic acid and boiling onions, superimposed upon a basis of thick, heavy, stale air.  But the hour she spent in the dirty kitchen was nevertheless not an unpleasant one.  Her grandmother was all alone, and was too used to similar vagaries on the part of all her family to resent Julia’s disappearance and long silence.

“We had your postal,” she admitted, in answer to her granddaughter’s embarrassed query.  “You look thin, me dear; you’ve not got your old bold, stylish look about you.”

And she wrinkled her old face and studied Julia with blinking eyes.  “The girls was glad enough to use your dresses.  Marguerite looked real nice in the one she took.  Your Mama wrote in to know what kind of a job you had—­Sit down, Julia,” she said as she poked about the stove with a lid lifter.

Julia, who had drawn a long breath to recount her experiences, suddenly expelled it.  It occurred to her, with a great relief, that her grandmother was not interested in details.  Her hard life had left her no curiosity; she was only mildly satisfied at finding her granddaughter apparently prosperous and well; Mrs. Cox was never driven to the necessity of borrowing trouble.