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After finishing her own letters, Cathalina sat quietly and watched her mother as she rapidly read one after another. Mrs. Van Buskirk’s dark hair, perfectly arranged, made a frame for her sweet, thoughtful face. Little rings of hair, curling from the moist heat, strayed about her brow and ears. “Such a pretty mother,” said Cathalina, reaching over to pat the slender hand resting on the table. Her mother drew Cathalina’s fingers within her own and read on down the last page of the last letter.

Cathalina had always wanted to look like her mother. Often as a little child she had stood before the mirror, anxiously looking to see if her hair were not a trifle darker, her nose a trifle longer! Some one had mentioned pug noses with scorn. Could it be that hers was one? For several months she worried over the matter, until one day one of her aunts had said, “I think Cathalina is going to have the Van Buskirk nose.” That was anything but a pug, she knew, and then she feared that she might have a nose as long as Uncle Martin Van Buskirk’s,—which would never do on a girl! Alas the secret fears of childhood, so real, yet so easily forgotten.