des, picnics by the river. How small and very
far-away and trivial they now appeared. All had pointed toward New
York. "Go back and marry, settle down? Do I want to? No. And anyhow,
there's Joe and Susette. My place is right here--and I'm going to stay.
But what is it going to mean to me? What do I want in this city now?"

In the turmoil, startled, she looked about her for a purpose, some
ideal. But the old beliefs seemed dim; the new ones, garish and
confused. She recalled those faces of Amy's friends. "Yes, cheap and
tough, for all their clothes!" Or was it just this ghastly time that had
made them all appear so?

Again she thought of her sister dead. "Oh Amy--Amy! Where have you
gone?" And at last, quite suddenly, the tears came, and she huddled and
shook on her bed.

CHAPTER V

She slept that night exhausted, woke up early the next morning and lay
motionless on her bed: at first staring bewildered about the room, and
then, with a sharp contraction of her brows and a quick breath, looking
intently up at the ceiling. A vigilant look crept into her eyes, for at
once instinctively she was on guard against letting the feelings of
yesterday rise.

"What a selfish little beast I've been. Did I help in the funeral? Not
a bit. Did I comfort poor Joe? Not at all. I was occupied wholly with
my own morbid little soul. Now we're going to stiffen up, my love, and
try to be of some use to Joe, and do as Amy would have liked." She began
to tremble suddenly. "No, we're not going to think of her! It's
dangerous! Be practical! To begin with, I must clear things up. I'll
have a little talk with Joe. Poor Joe--it's going to be pretty
dreadful. I'll stick by him, though, and I've got to learn how to keep
him from going out of his mind." More staring at the ceiling. "One
thing I know. I shan't wear black. Amy detested mourning, and Joe will
see life black enough as it is. . . . Thank Heaven there's the
housekeeping to do. That shall run smoothly if it kills me! . . .
All right, now suppose we get out of bed."

About an hour later, from behind Amy's silver coffee pot, Ethel had her
talk with Joe. She felt ill, but she bit her lips and smiled. She had
dressed her hair becomingly and had donned a blue silk waist, one of the
countless pretty things that she had bought with Amy. Her brown eyes
had a resolute brightness.

"We'll have to help each other," she said. "And there's Susette to be
thought of. The best way, I guess, is not