first week waxed toward its end and
finished up Saturday night with invitations to two dances and one
week-end party at a country house ten miles away.

Leslie rushed in breathless about six o'clock Saturday evening, and
declared she was too much in a hurry to eat anything; she must get
dressed at once, and put some things in her bag. She rattled on about
the different social functions she was expected to attend that evening
until Julia Cloud was in hopeless confusion, and could only stand and
listen, and try to find the things that Leslie in her hurry had
overlooked. Then Allison arrived, and wanted some supper. He talked
with his mouth full about where he was going and what he was going to
do, and at the end of an hour and a half Julia Cloud had a very
indefinite idea of anything. She had a swift mental vision of church
and Sabbath and Christian Endeavor all slipping slowly out of their
calculation, and the WORLD in large letters taking the forefront of
their vision.

"You are going to a dance!" she said in a white, stricken way she had
when an anxiety first bewildered her. "To _two_ dances! O my dear
Leslie! You--_dance_, then? I--hadn't thought of that!"

"Sure I dance!" said Leslie gayly, drawing up the delicate silk
stocking over her slim ankles and slipping on a silver slipper. "You
ought to see me. And Allison can dance, too. We'll show you sometime.
Don't you like dancing, Cloudy? Why, Cloudy! You couldn't mean you
don't approve of dancing? Not _really_! But where would we be?
_Everybody_ dances! Why, there wouldn't be anything else to do when
young people went out. Oh, do you suppose Cherry would press out this
skirt a little bit? It's got horribly mussed in that drawer."

Julia Cloud had dropped into a chair with an all-gone feeling and a
lightness in the top of her head. She felt as if the world, the flesh,
and the devil had suddenly dropped down upon the house and were
carrying off her children bodily, and she was powerless to prevent it.
She could not keep the pain of it out of her eyes; yet she did not
know what to say in this emergency. None of the things that had always
seemed entirely convincing in forming her own opinions seemed adequate
to the occasion. Leslie turned suddenly, and saw her stricken face.

"What's the matter, Cloudy? Is something wrong? Aren't you well? Don't
you like me to go to a dance? Why, Cloudy! Do you really _object_?"

"I have no right to object, I suppose, dear," she sai