it had a peculiar significance. Liz
was sitting upon the hearth, with some odds and ends of bright-colored
ribbon on her knee, and a little straw hat in her hand. She was trimming
the hat, and using the scraps of ribbon for the purpose. When she heard
Joan, she looked up and reddened somewhat, and then hung her head over
her work again.

"I'm makin' up my hat agen," she said, almost deprecatingly. "It wur
sich a faded thing."

"Are y o'?" said Joan.

She came and stood leaning against the fireplace, and looked down at
Liz thoughtfully. The shallowness and simplicity of the girl baffled her
continually. She herself, who was prompted in action by deep motive and
strong feeling, found it hard to realize that there could be a surface
with no depth below.

Her momentary embarrassment having died out, Liz had quite forgotten
herself in the interest of her task. She was full of self-satisfaction
and trivial pleasure. She looked really happy as she tried the effect of
one bit of color after another, holding the hat up. Joan had never
known her to show such interest in anything before. One would never
have fancied, seeing the girl at this moment, that a blight lay upon her
life, that she could only look back with shrinking and forward without
hope. She was neither looking backward nor forward now,--all her simple
energies were concentrated in her work. How was it? Joan asked herself.
Had she forgotten--could she forget the past and be ready for petty
vanities and follies? To Joan. Liz's history had been a tragedy--a
tragedy which must be tragic to its end, There was something startlingly
out of keeping in the present mood of this pretty seventeen-year-old
girl sitting eager and delighted over her lapful of ribbons. Not that
Joan begrudged her the slight happiness--she only wondered, and asked
herself how it could be.

Possibly her silence attracted Liz's attention. Suddenly she looked up,
and when she saw the gravity of Joan's face, her own changed.

"Yo're grudgin' me doin' it," she cried. "Yo' think I ha' no reet to
care for sich things," and she dropped hat and ribbon on her knee with
an angry gesture. "Happen I ha' na," she whimpered. "I ha' na getten no
reet to no soart o' pleasure, I dare say."

"Nay," said Joan rousing herself from her revery. "Nay, yo' must na say
that, Liz. If it pleases yo' it conna do no hurt; I'm glad to see yo'
pleased."

"I'm tired o' doin' nowt but mope i' th' house," Liz fretted. "I wa