“Well, the nuns are very kind to them,” Miss Toland answered comfortably; and Julia knew this was true, as far as possible.

One morning, when Julia slipped into her place in St. Anne’s, she saw, two feet away from her, on an undraped trestle, a narrow coffin, and in the coffin the rigid form of a girl who had been prayed for a few mornings earlier as very ill.  There was not a flower on the still, flat young breast, and no kindly artifice beautified the stern face or the bare, raw little hands that protruded from the blue-green gingham sleeves.  The ruined little tenement that had served some man’s pleasure and been flung aside lay there as little beholden to the world in death as it had been in life.  And as if the usual silence of the chapel would be too hard to bear, the living girls chanted to-day the “Dies Irae” and the “Libera me.”

When winter came, the little trestle was often in requisition, for the inmates of St. Anne’s were ill-fitted to cope with any sickness.  Once it was a nun, in her black robes, who lay there, her magnificent still face wearing its usual deep, wise smile, her tired hands locked about her crucifix.  For her there were flowers, masses of flowers, and more than one black-robed priest, and a special choir, and Julia knew that the other nuns envied that one of their number who had gone on to other work in other fields.

She grew grave, who was always grave, thinking of these things, and talked them over with Kennedy Scott.  Kennedy was deeply, even passionately, concerned for a while, and she and Julia decided to establish a home some day for girls who were still to be saved.

Time went very swiftly now:  years were not as long as they used to be, one birthday was in sight of another.  Sometimes Julia was astonished and a little saddened, as is the way of youth, at the realization of the flying months.  She was busy, contented, beloved; she was accomplishing her ambition—­but at what a cost of years!  The great moment might come now at any time—­Prince Charming might be on his way to her now, but meantime she must work and eat and sleep—­and the birthdays came apace.  Sometimes she grew very restless; this was not life!  But a visit to her grandmother’s house usually sent her back to The Alexander with fresh courage.  No possible alternative offered itself anywhere.

Just at first she had hoped for inspiring frequent glimpses of her adored Tolands, but these were very few.  Sometimes Barbara or the younger girls would come to Easter or Christmas entertainments at the settlement, but Julia, always especially busy on these occasions, saw no more than Barbara’s pretty, bored face, framed in furs, across a room full of people, or returned a dignified good-bye to Sally’s hasty, “Mother and the others have gone on, Miss Page; they asked me to say good-bye!” But then there was the prospect of a day with Kennedy Scott, to console her, or perhaps the reflection that little Mr. Craig, who came out on Tuesday evenings to the meetings of the Boys’ Club, was in love with her.  She did not wish to marry Mr. Craig, still it was nice of him to admire her; it was nice to have a new hat; it was pleasant to visit the San Jose convent, with Miss Toland, and be petted by the nuns.  So Julia cheated herself, as youth forever cheats itself, with the lesser joys.