es, grandfather," she called from the head of the stairs in a
peculiarly quiet voice. "I see. It's all right."

Then she could not find the things she wanted to put on. There was a
button off her dress and her thread broke in sewing it. She was holding
herself very tight when her mother came leisurely into the room and
stood there commenting on the way Ruth's hair was done, on the
untidiness of her dressing-table, mildly reproving her for a growing
carelessness. Then she wandered along about something Ruth was to tell
Edith's mother. Ruth, her trembling fingers tangling her thread, was
thinking that she was always to tell somebody something somebody else
had said, take something from one person to another. The way people were
all held together in trivial things, that thin, seemingly purposeless
web lightly holding them together was eternally throwing threads around
her, keeping her from the one thing that counted.

"There!" escaped from her at last, breaking the thread and throwing the
dress over her head. Her mother sauntered over to fasten it for her,
pausing to note how the dress was wearing out, speaking of the new one
Ruth must have soon, and who should make it. "Oh, I'm in a _hurry_,
mother!" Ruth finally cried when her mother stopped to consider how the
dress would have had more style if, instead of buttoning down the back,
it had fastened under that fold.

"Really, my dear," Mrs. Holland remonstrated, jerking the dress straight
with a touch of vexation, "I must say that you are getting positively
peevish!"

As Ruth did not reply, and the mother could feel her body tightening,
she went on, with a loving little pat as she fastened the dress over the
hip, "And you used to be the most sweet-tempered girl ever lived."

Still Ruth made no answer. "Your father was saying the other night that
he was sure you couldn't be feeling well. You never used to be a bit
irritable, he said, and you nearly snapped his head off when he
wanted--just to save you--to drive you over to Harriett's."

Though the dress was all fastened now, Ruth did not turn toward her
mother. Mrs. Holland added gently: "Now that wasn't reasonable, was it?"

The tear Ruth had been trying to hold back fell to the handkerchief she
was selecting. No, it wouldn't seem reasonable, of course; her father
had wanted to help her, and she had been cross. It was all because she
couldn't tell him the truth--which was that she hadn't told him the
truth, that she