If she succeeded, well and good.

If she failed she would be obliged to begin all over again, to try for another position as housekeeper, perhaps to "go out nursing" once more.

She was growing older; soon she would be beyond middle life and entering upon the first stages of old age.

And what a lonely old age hers was likely to be! Her husband was dead; her only near relative, brother Jedediah, was--well, he might be dead also, poor helpless, dreamy incompetent.

He might have died in the Klondike, providing he ever reached that far-off country, which was unlikely.