We’ll maybe run over to London some day and shop!” And then she flashed a brilliant loving smile at Rose that almost made her feel that some of these daydreams might come true after all.

Rose had grown used to having to wear plain, made-over garments. It had almost seemed wicked to her to have her mother buy this suit for her. But when she saw how much it meant to her mother to dress her child up for her relatives, she said no more.

Yes, surely Mother must have realized that she couldn’t stay long. It came to Rose with a quick sharp thrust how that last morning before Mother died, she had called to her with sudden strength in her voice.

“Rose, dear, I want you to get that tweed suit and do it up to be returned. The ten days will be up tomorrow, and I’ve decided that I don’t want to keep it.”

“Oh, Mother!” Rose had said in distress. “But I thought you liked it so much!”

“Yes, I liked it,” she said with a faint smile, “but somehow I got to thinking about it in the night. I believe I’ll find something I like better—”

Her breath was short and she closed her eyes wearily, as if the effort was more than she was equal to. But she roused herself a little later and begged Rose to tie up the package and ask the woman who lived next door and was a saleswoman in the store to return it for her. And because she had been so insistent, Rose had done it.

It hurt her now, as it had hurt her while she was wrapping the package, that her mother never had that suit. Yes, surely she must have known she was going, even before the final symptoms came that made the doctor lose hope. And her mother had sent that suit back quickly to make sure Rose would have that little more money for her solitary trip to Scotland. Dear Mother! It seemed to Rose that she would never be able to spend that money for anything for herself! It seemed sacred money. Yet her mother would never have wanted her to feel that way, she was sure.

She drew another deep quivering breath and tried to steady her lips, and her gaze. The mover would be back in a few minutes. She must not be weeping. He did not know that her mother had gone away from her and left her utterly alone. He was a man from down in the city, one she had found from the telephone book.

She gathered the last few things together for him to take: the screen that had disguised the old gas hot plate, the decrepit wastebasket, a few remaining chairs, and the little tool chest that had been her father’s. She put the hammer and the screwdriver carefully away in it and locked it, putting the key in her suitcase with other keys. Then she went to the closet and got her coat and hat and the white blouse that was to be used on shipboard alternating with the blue one she was wearing now. She laid the crisp white one in smoothly, touching it tenderly. This was the last thing her dear mother had worked at, ironing that blouse, doing it late at night when she ought to have been in bed, handling it so lovingly, almost as if it were something holy. Could she ever bear to wear that blouse and take its crispness away? Oh, how was she going to bear the days of her journey without her mother? Why did she have to go now? Why couldn’t she just stay here? Those people, her relatives in Scotland, didn’t know her, and wouldn’t care. How could she go and meet them all without her mother, who had counted so much upon it?

But there had been cables back and forth, and they had been insistent. They had regretted that they could not come and bring her back with them. They were old, and not very well. And she knew it would be her mother’s wish that she should go to them.

Besides, if she tried to stay, where would she live? Get a job? But it wasn’t so easy to get jobs today. She might have to wait months, and she had but a very little money besides those tickets. Of course, she could turn in Mother’s ticket. She meant to do that as soon as she reached New York. Perhaps she should have written to cancel it sooner.