The Conquering Hero is Disposed to be Human

The dark hair was coiled high on top of the shapely head, and a few
tendrils strayed about her neck and brow. She wore no ornaments--not
even the simplest pin.

She was curled up in a great leather chair, in front of the open fire,
playing with a white angora kitten, who climbed upon her shoulder and
generally conducted himself like a white ball of animated yarn. It was
too bad that there was no painter at hand to transfer to canvas so
lovely a picture as this girl in her white frock made, sitting by the
firelight in this mellow old room, playing with a white imp of a
kitten. It would have made an ideal study in white and scarlet.

How comfortable it all was; the book-lined walls, the repose and
dignity of this beautiful home, with its corps of well-trained servants
waiting to minister to one's lightest wants. The secure and sheltered
feeling that it gave appealed strongly to the girl, who but a little
while ago had enjoyed similar surroundings in her father's house.

And then, there had been that awful day when her father's wealth had
vanished into air like a burst bubble, and he had come home with a
white drawn face and gone to bed, never again to rise from it.

Anna did not mind the privations that followed on her own account, but
they were pitifully hard on her invalid mother, who had been used to
every comfort all her life.