painter who never was an artist, becomes one in you! And so, dear, I am your happy Aunt Mary. Aunt Mary Mary Sidney and her boy exchanged a look. With unsteady hands Phil straightened the legal letter, and they read it together. Then they rose from the table with one accord. [24] [24] Mrs. Fabian, wrapped in thought, looked up at the sudden movement. Phil's concentrated gaze went past her to the fire, and he stood motionless, one hand leaning on the table, the other arm around his mother. Mary Sidney clasped the rustling paper to her breast. All the self-forgetfulness of mother-love shone in her wet eyes as she met Mrs. Fabian's questioning look. "Isabel, I told you it would come," she said. "I told you we should know. The light is here. Phil is going to New York." [25] [25] CHAPTER II SEVERED COMPANIONSHIP Eliza Brewster could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that tears had escaped her pale eyes. She had always felt for those who wept easily, the same leniency without comprehension that she entertained for women who fainted. Trials had come and gone in her life; but never, since the day when she discovered some boys maltreating her cat, had she shed such tears as flowed now in her sorrow. The cat's abbreviated tail bore witness still to that day's conflict, but both his wound and hers had healed. When would this new wound cease to ache and palpitate! Each day there in the lonely flat, Eliza Brewster renewed war with the memories to which she had no mind to succumb. The gentleness of her mistress, her innocent, ever-springing hope, her constant disappointments, the solitariness of her narrow life, the neglect of her relatives—all these things re[26]curred to the
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