ild can be satisfied for long if there remains
one person in the room who is not paying the due meed of attention.
Before ten minutes were passed the trio were once more swarming over
their mother's chair, tugging at her gown to attract attention.

"Jean!" asked Vanna suddenly, "are you happy?"

Jean stared at her with stolid surprise.

"Of course I am happy," she said flatly. "What do you mean?"

"But are you blissfully, ecstatically, unspeakably happy--almost too
happy to live?"

Jean's stare took on a tinge of affront.

"No! Of course not. Why should I be?"

"Why should you not? If such a thing is possible to any one on earth,
it ought to be to you. You have everything that is worth having--
everything! Robert--his wonderful love; these children, interest in
life, hope, expectation. You are so _rich_!"

Jean's face softened. She looked at the white-robed figures at her
feet, and for a moment her eyes shone; for a moment, and then once more
the shadow fell.

"Yes," she said. "Oh, yes, I know! I _am_ well off, but one can't live
on the heights; and, oh, dear! oh, dear, there are such worries! Morton
has given me notice. It's so difficult to find a decent cook for small
wages. I shall have to begin the weary old hunt once more. And Lorna
keeps complaining of her eyes. Robert says she must see an oculist, but
I do so dread it. If _she_ has to wear spectacles it will break my
heart. And you remember those dining-room curtains that I sent to be
dyed? They came back to-day the wrong shade--simply shrieking at the
walls. Ruined! Isn't it maddening--I feel so depressed--"

She looked across the room with a transparent appeal for sympathy, but
with a quick, glad laugh Vanna leapt to her feet and swept towards the
door.

"Good-bye. I'm going. Thank you so much!"

"_Going_!" Jean rushed after her in dismay.

"Vanna, you've just come. Thank me for _what_? You mad creature, what
do you mean?"

"My lesson! Don't stop me, Jean, I'll come again--I must go."

She fled into the street, and the sound of her laughter floated back to
Jean as she stood by the open door.

"_The dining-room curtains don't match_!" Jean, the beloved, had said
these astounding words; had advanced them in all seriousness as a reason
for unhappiness! In the midst of plenty, this infinitesimal crumb could
mar her joy. And Jean was but a type of her class. All over London
while their lonely sisters were eating thei