o be wobbling as if they
might shoot downward any minute, and--and leave only a trail of light
behind!"

The last words came on a note of rather shaky laughter. Roberta's arm
lay across her mother's knee, her head upon it. She turned her head
downward for an instant, burying her face in the angle of her arm. Mrs.
Gray regarded the mass of dark locks beneath her hand with a look amused
yet sympathetic.

"That sort of discomfort attacks us all, at times," she said. "Ideals
change and develop with our growth. One would not want the same ones to
serve her all her life."

"I know. But when it's not a new and better ideal which displaces the
old one, but only--an attraction--"

"An attraction not ideal?"

Roberta shook her head. "I'm afraid not. And I don't see why it should
be an attraction at all. It ought not to be, if my ideals have been what
they should have been. And they have. Why, you gave them to me, mother,
many of them--or at least helped me to work them out for myself. And
I--I had confidence in them!"

"And they're shaken?"

"Not the ideals--they're all the same. Only--they don't seem to be proof
against--assault. Oh, I'm talking in riddles, I know. I don't want to
put any of it into words, it makes it seem more real. And it's only a
shadowy sort of difficulty. Maybe that's all it will be."

Mothers are wonderful at divination; why should they not be, when all
their task is a training in understanding young natures which do not
understand themselves. From these halting phrases of mystery Mrs. Gray
gathered much more than her daughter would have imagined. But she did
not let that be seen.

"If it is only a shadowy difficulty the rising of the sun will put it to
flight," she predicted.

Roberta was silent for a space. Then suddenly she sat up.

"I had a long letter from Forbes Westcott to-day," she said, in a tone
which tried to be casual. "He's staying on in London, getting material
for that difficult Letchworth case he's so anxious to win. It's a
wonderfully interesting letter, though he doesn't say much about the
case. He's one of the cleverest letter writers I ever knew--in the
flesh. It's really an art with him. If he hadn't made a lawyer of
himself he would have been a man of letters, his literary tastes are so
fine. It's quite an education in the use of delightfully spirited
English, a correspondence with him. I've appreciated that more with each
letter."

She produced the letter. "Just list