erlasting. I am mistress of my own fate. I have
not handed it over to him. Happiness is not a thing to get. It is a
state of mind to live in. It is my own affair, not that of others." She
rested her chin in her hands and fell into a girl's day-dream, in which
the nightmare was forgotten.

Twilight fell at last, and faint sounds came up to her to remind her
that down stairs there were well-beloved people who did not know and
should never know of her little vigil. Her father must be coming home.
It was time for her to put on her armor and go down. Armor is one of the
necessities of life. If we can't wear it in steel plates on the outside,
we must mask the face with impenetrability and the manner with pretense.
Never let the heart be vulnerable. Yet, try as we may, something of our
weakness is laid bare. Hereafter Miss Elton might be serene, but would
never again be placid.

But now she was quite herself.

Down stairs her father read the paper and her mother sat near the big
table, hem-stitching. For them everything was settled, and settled
satisfactorily. They knew whom they were going to marry, and whether
love was to be a success, and where they were going to live, and what
they were going to do. Henceforth, for them the game meant only
pleasantly plodding onward along paths already marked out. Just a
wholesome common marriage, planted with the seed of love and watered
with small self-sacrifices. How could they possibly remember the
restlessness of youth, to whom all these things are hidden in the mists
of the future, and who is longing for everything and sure of nothing?

Madeline sat down at the piano and her hands fell inevitably into
phrasing the "unfinished symphony." She became aware that her mother
laid down the stitching and Mr. Elton's evening paper ceased to crackle.
As she stopped her father stood behind her. He bent and kissed the
little parting in her hair.

"Your music grows sweeter and richer day by day, little girl," he said.
"I suppose as more comes into your life you have more to give. I'm glad
that you give it out to us old folks at home."

Madeline wheeled about and sprang to her feet.

"Ah," she exclaimed, "if you have finished with your stupid old paper,
I'll give you a real piece of news. It's a 'scoop' too, for no reporter
has got hold of it yet. Dick Percival is engaged to little Miss Quincy."

Both father and mother stared at her in silence. She stood a little
behind the chandelier, wh