lding her close, as though
she were the older. Sylvia was weeping again, the furious, healing,
inexhaustible tears of youth. To both the sisters it seemed that they
were passing an hour of supreme bitterness; but their strong young
hearts, clinging with unconscious tenacity to their right to joy,
were at that moment painfully opening and expanding beyond the narrow
bounds of childhood. Henceforth they were to be great enough to harbor
joy--a greater joy--and sorrow, side by side.

Moreover, as though their action-loving mother were still watching
over them, they found themselves confronted at once with an inexorable
demand for their strength and courage.

Judith detached herself, and said in a firm voice: "Sylvia, you
mustn't cry any more. We must think what to do."

As Sylvia looked at her blankly, she went on: "Somehow Lawrence must
be taken away for a while--until Father's--either you or I must
go with him and stay, and the other one be here with Father until
he's--he's more like himself."

Sylvia, fresh from the desolation of solitude in sorrow, cried out:
"Oh, Judith, how can you! Now's the time for us all to stay together!
Why should we--?"

Judith went to the door and closed it before answering, a precaution
so extraordinary in that house of frank openness that Sylvia was
struck into silence by it. Standing by the door, Judith said in a low
tone, "You didn't notice--anything--about Father?"

"Oh yes, he looks ill. He is so pale--he frightened me!"

Judith looked down at the floor and was silent a moment. Sylvia's
heart began to beat fast with a new foreboding. "Why, what _is_ the
matter with--" she began.

Judith covered her face with her hands. "I don't know what to _do_!"
she said despairingly.

No phrase coming from Judith could have struck a more piercing alarm
into her sister's heart. She ran to Judith, pulled her hands down, and
looked into her face anxiously. "What do you mean, Judy--what do you
mean?"

"Why--it's five days now since Mother died, three days since the
funeral--and Father has hardly eaten a mouthful--and I don't think
he's slept at all. I know he hasn't taken his clothes off. And--and--"
she drew Sylvia again to the bed, and sat down beside her, "he says
such things ... the night after Mother died Lawrence had cried so I
was afraid he would be sick, and I got him to bed and gave him some
hot milk,"--the thought flashed from one to the other almost palpably,
"That is what Mother