Dr. Bellair smiled broadly.
"Aren't you over twenty-one?" she asked.
"I'm twenty-five," the girl replied, with proud acceptance of a life long done—as one who owned to ninety-seven.
"And self-supporting?" pursued the doctor.
Vivian flushed.
"No—not yet," she answered; "but I mean to be."
"Exactly! Now's your chance. Break away now, my dear, and come West. You can get work—start a kindergarten, or something. I know you love children."
The girl's heart rose within her in a great throb of hope.
"Oh—if I could!" she exclaimed, and even as she said it, rose half-conscious memories of the low, sweet tones of Mrs. St. Cloud. "It is a woman's place to wait—and to endure."
She heard a step on the walk outside—looked out.