rench grammar,
or meat pie on Mondays from Sunday's roast, I had noticed nothing.

I fear I am one who lives for the Day only, and as such I beleive that
when people smile they are happy, forgetfull that to often a smile
conceals an aching and tempestuous Void within.

Now I was to learn that the demon Strife had entered my domacile, there
to make his--or her--home. I do not agree with that poet, A. J. Ryan,
date forgoten, who observed:

Better a day of strife
Than a Century of sleep.

Although naturaly no one wishes to sleep for a Century, or even
approxamately.

There was Strife in the house. The first way I noticed it, aside from
Hannah's anonamous remark, was by observing that Leila was mopeing. She
acted very strangely, giving me a pair of pink hoze without more than a
hint on my part, and not sending me out of the room when Carter Brooks
came in to tea the next day.

I had staid at home, fearing that if I went out I should purchace some
CREPE DE CHENE combinations I had been craving in a window, and besides
thinking it possable that Tom would drop in to renew our relations of
yesterday, not remembering that there was a Ball Game.

Mother having gone out to the Country Club, I put my hair on top of my
head, thus looking as adult as possable. Taking a new detective story of
Jane's under my arm, I descended the staircase to the library.

Sis was there, curled up in a chair, knitting for the soldiers. Having
forgoten the Ball Game, as I have stated, I asked her, in case I had a
caller, to go away, which, considering she has the house to herself all
winter, I considered not to much.

"A caller!" she said. "Since when have you been allowed to have
callers?"

I looked at her steadily.

"I am young," I observed, "and still in the school room, Leila. I admit
it, so don't argue. But as I have not taken the veil, and as this is
not a Penitentary, I darsav I can see my friends now and anon, especialy
when they live next door."

"Oh!" she said. "It's the Gray infant, is it!"

This remark being purely spiteful, I ignored it and sat down to my book,
which concerned the stealing of some famous Emerelds, the heroine being
a girl detective who could shoot the cork out of a bottle at a great
distance, and whose name was Barbara!

It was for that reason Jane had loaned me the book.

I had reached the place where the Duchess wore the Emerelds to a ball,
above white satin and lillies, the girl detective be