Through These Fires (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill

family consisted of the two little girls. One a young stepdaughter a couple of years older than Lexie, and very badly spoiled by an old aunt who had had charge of her since her own mother had died and until her father married again.

      It would have been easier for the mother after her husband's death, if this stepdaughter could have gone back to the aunt who had spoiled her and set her young feet in the wrong, selfish way. But the old aunt had died before the father, and there was no one else to care or to come to the rescue, so Alexia's mother did her brave best to teach the other girl to love her, to love her little sister, and to be less self-centered. She worked on, keeping a happy home behind the white gate, and putting away a little here, a little there, for the education she meant for both girls to have. Elaine was as well as her own little girl.

      But Elaine was not bent on studies. She skimmed through three years of high school carrying on a lively flirtation with every boy in the grade, and cutting the rules of the institution right and left. Mrs. Kendall often had to go up to the school to meet with the principal and promise to do her best to make Elaine see the world as it was, and not as she wished it to be. And so with many a heartbreak and sigh, with tears of discouragement and prayers for patience, she dragged Elaine through high school by force, as it were, and landed her in a respectable college for young women where the mother hoped she would do better. But Elaine, during the latter half of her first year in college, ran away with a handsome boy from a boys' college not many miles away, and got married. So for a time the mother had only one girl to look after, and the way seemed a little easier. The boy who had married Elaine was the son of wealthy parents, and Mrs. Kendall hoped that at last Elaine would settle down and be happy under ideal circumstances where she could have all the luxury that her lazy little soul desired, and the way would be open for herself to have a little peace.

      But they soon found out that they were by no means rid of Elaine. Again and again there would be trouble, and Elaine would come back plaintively to her long-suffering stepmother for help to settle her difficulties. The wealthy parents had not taken a liking to Elaine, in spite of her beauty and grace, and they soon discovered her tricky ways of procuring money from them that they would not have chosen to give. Again and again the stepmother would have to sacrifice something she needed, or something she had hoped to get Alexia, in order to cover some of the other girl's indiscretions. It ended finally in a sharp quarrel and a quick divorce, which not only failed to teach the selfish girl a lesson but also left her bitter and exceedingly hard to live with.

      She had come back to her stepmother, of course, utterly refusing to return to her studies. She spent her time bewailing her fate and sulking in bitterness, unable to see that it was all her own fault.

      All this had made a great part of Alexia's school days most unhappy. Elaine would sulk and weep and blame them all, and there would be periods of deep gloom in the little house behind the white gate where Lexie used to swing so cheerfully. So, amid battle after battle life went on until Lexie was in high school. Then, wonder of wonders, Elaine fell in love with a poor young man, and in spite of all the worldly wisdom they offered her to show her how this time she would not have money to ease the burdens of life, she married him. She wouldn't believe that they would be poor. She said Richard Carnell was brilliant and would soon be making money enough, and anyway she loved him, and off she went to the far west.

      So Lexie went on in high school in peace, with sometimes a really new dress all her own and not one made over from one of Elaine's. Mrs. Kendall settled down to work harder than ever to save to put her girl through college.

      It was about the time that Elaine's first baby arrived, when Lexie was still in her second year at high school, that she took to writing her stepmother again in high, scrawling letters asking to borrow money. There was always a plausible tale of ill luck and a plea of ill health on her part that made it necessary for her to hire a servant, sometimes two, and she didn't like to ask Dick for the extra money. He was so sweet and generous to her. "And, Mother," she added naively, "wasn't there some money my father left that rightly belongs to me anyway?"

      There wasn't, but the stepmother sent her a small amount of money to help out a little, realizing that it would not be the last time this request would be made. She also told her plainly that her father had left no money at all. His business had failed just before his last illness, and she herself had had to get a job and work hard to make both ends meet ever since.

      The next time Elaine wrote she said that she distinctly remembered her father telling her own mother before she died that their child would never be in need, that he had taken care of that and put away a sufficient sum to keep her in comfort for years.

      As Elaine was between two and a half and three years old when her own mother died, that seemed a rather fantastic story, but Mrs. Kendall had learned long ago not to expect sane logic nor absolute accuracy from Elaine in her statements, and she had patiently let it go.

      Lexie, as she grew older and came to know the state of things fully, was very indignant at the stepsister who had darkened the sunshine in her young life time after time, and one day when she was in her second year of college, she brought the subject out in the open, telling her mother that she thought the time had come to let Elaine understand all that she had done for her through the years and how she had actually gone without necessities to please the girl's whims. Elaine had a husband now and a home of her own. Perhaps it was only a rented house, but her husband was making enough money to enable her to live comfortably, and Elaine had no right to try and get money from them any longer. Suppose Elaine did have three children, she had two servants to help her now, didn't she? Elaine would complain of course, she had always done that, and say she was sick and miserable. But she went out a great deal, belonged to bridge clubs and things that cost money and took time and strength. Why should her stepmother have to sacrifice to help out every time Elaine wanted to give a party or buy a new dress? Oh, Lexie was beginning to see things very straight then, and though she was born with a sweet, generous nature, she couldn't bear to see her dear mother taken advantage of by a selfish girl who was never grateful for anything that was done for her.

      But Mrs. Kendall, though she acknowledged that there was a great deal of truth in what her daughter said, told Lexie that she felt an obligation toward Elaine because of a promise she had made Elaine's father before he died. He had been greatly troubled about Elaine, convinced that he had been to blame for leaving her so long with the old aunt who had spoiled her. He implored his wife to look after her as if she were her own, and she had promised she would. Furthermore she had begged Lexie to try to feel toward Elaine as if she were her own sister, and to be kind and considerate of her needs, even if she, the mother, should be taken away. So with tears Lexie had kissed her mother, and promised, "Of course, Mother dear. I'll do everything I can for her. If she would only let you alone, though, and not be continually implying that you were using or hiding money of hers."

      Lexie's mother died during Lexie's third year of college. Elaine sent a telegram of condolence, and regretted that she could not come East for the funeral because of ill health and lack of funds for the journey.

      This ended the pleas for money for the time being, and poor Lexie had to bear her sorrow and the heavy burdens that fell upon her young shoulders alone. Though there was no heartbreak for her in the fact of Elaine's absence. Elaine had never been a comfortable member of the family to have around.

      Elaine sent brief, scant letters that harped continually on her own ill health as well as the amount of work there was connected with a family of children, especially for a sick mother, and one whose social duties were essential for her husband's business success.

      Lexie had been more than usually busy of course, since her mother's death, and she had taken very little time to reply at length to these scattered letters. Her attention was more than full with her examinations and arranging for a war job after graduation. If she thought of Elaine at all, it was to be thankful that she seemed to have a good husband and was fully occupied in a far corner of the country where she was not likely to appear on the scene.

      Lexie had come back during vacation to attend to some business connected with the little home that her mother had left free from debt. She had felt it should be rented, or perhaps sold, though she shrank from giving it up. But she had put away a great many of her small treasures, and arranged everything