The poor woman sat down in her chair, and wept into her apron regardless

for once of the soap-suds that rolled down her red, wet arms.

"Is my grandmother living yet?" asked Elizabeth. She was sorry for this

grandmother, but did not know what to say. She was afraid to comfort her

lest she take it for yielding.

"Yes, they say she is," said Mrs. Brady, sitting up with a show of

interest. She was always ready for a bit of gossip. "Her husband's dead,

and her other son's dead, and she's all alone. She lives in a big house on

Rittenhouse Square. If she was any 'count, she'd ought to provide fer you.

I never thought about it. But I don't suppose it would be any use to try.

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You might ask her. Perhaps she'd help you go to school. You've got a claim

on her. She ought to give you her son's share of his father's property,

though I've heard she disowned him when he married our Bess. You might fix

up in some of Lizzie's best things, and go up there and try. She might

give you some money."

"I don't want her money," said Elizabeth stiffly. "I guess there's work

somewhere in the world I can do without begging even of grandmothers. But

I think I ought to go and see her. She might want to know about father."

Mrs. Brady looked at her granddaughter wonderingly. This was a view of

things she had never taken.

"Well," said she resignedly, "go your own gait. I don't know where you'll

come up at. All I say is, ef you're going through the world with such high

and mighty fine notions, you'll have a hard time. You can't pick out roses

and cream and a bed of down every day. You have to put up with life as you

find it."

Elizabeth went to her room, the room she shared with Lizzie. She wanted to

get away from her grandmother's disapproval. It lay on her heart like

lead. Was there no refuge in the world? If grandmothers were not refuges,

where should one flee? The old lady in Chicago had understood; why had not

Grandmother Brady?

Then came the sweet old words, "Let not your heart be troubled." "In the

time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his

tabernacle shall he hide me." She knelt down by the bed and said "Our

Father." She was beginning to add some words of her own now. She had heard

them pray so in Christian Endeavor in the sentence prayers. She wished she

knew more about God, and His Book. She had had so little time to ask or

think about it. Life seemed all one rush for clothes and position.




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