ts members alone, and a firm tradition of
not interfering in their private affairs. Judith had come home before
her father and now looked up from her game of checkers with wondering
eyes. Sylvia explained that she was not sick, and that nothing had
happened to break up or disturb the house-party. "I just _felt_ like
coming home, that's all!" she said irritably, touched on the raw by
the friendly loving eyes and voices about her. She was glad at least
that her father was not at home. That was one less to look at her.

"Well, get along to bed with you!" said her mother, in answer to her
impatient explanation. "And, you children--keep still! Don't bother
her!"

Sylvia crept upstairs into the whiteness of her own slant-ceilinged
room, and without lighting a lamp sat down on the bed. Her knees shook
under her. She made no move to take off her furs or hat. She felt no
emotion, only a leaden fatigue and lameness as though she had been
beaten. Her mother, coming in five minutes later with a lighted lamp
and a cup of hot chocolate, made no comment at finding her still
sitting, fully dressed in the dark. She set the lamp down, and with
swift deftness slipped out hatpins, unhooked furs, unbuttoned and
unlaced and loosened, until Sylvia woke from her lethargy and quickly
completed the process, slipping on her nightgown and getting into bed.
Not a word had been exchanged. Mrs. Marshall brought the cup of hot
chocolate and Sylvia drank it as though she were a little girl again.
Her mother kissed her good-night, drew the blankets a little more
snugly over her, opened two windows wide, took away the lamp, and shut
the door.

Sylvia, warmed and fed by the chocolate, lay stretched at full length
in the bed, breathing in the fresh air which rushed across her face
from the windows, feeling herself in a white beatitude of safety and
peace. Especially did she feel grateful to her mother. "Isn't Mother
_great_!" she said to herself. Everything that had passed seemed like
a confusing dream to her, so dreadful, so terrifying that she was
amazed to feel herself, in spite of it, overcome with drowsiness. Now
the roles were reversed. It was her brain that was active, racing and
shuddering from one frightening mental picture to another, while her
body, young, sound, healthful, fell deeper and deeper into torpor,
dragging the quivering mind down to healing depths of oblivion. The
cold, pure air blew so strongly in her face that she closed her eye