ry. But the
sunlight was streaming in through the pretty chintz curtains there; and
its softness and its ease, its luxury and blithe content, stole into her
spirit and quieted her. She sat looking about.

"What is there for me to do?"

It came over her that the cook and the nurse could tell her just about
what they pleased. She had no means of checking them up, for Amy had
never talked of such things. It had all been pretty clothes and shops,
in those brief exciting weeks, and shrewd counsel about men and what it
was they wanted of women. How appallingly shallow and meaningless those
conversations now appeared. They gave no comfort or support. The
remembrance of the terror in Amy's eyes at the thought of death rose
vividly in Ethel's mind, and she got up and walked the floor.

"We'll fight this down--we'll fight this down," she kept repeating
determinedly. And as soon as she was quiet again: "What is there for me
to do? Why Joe, of course--and heaven knows he'll be enough. He's the
hardest kind, he doesn't cry, he keeps it all inside of him." She drew a
deep breath. "How about this room?" She frowned and looked around her.
"No, I don't think he wants anything changed. For the present at least,
I'll leave it alone. But he ought not to be reminded of her by every
little thing he sees."

She looked into the closets. In Joe's she found some of Amy's things.
She put them back in her sister's closet and then gently closed the
door. As she stood there a moment longer, she had a curious feeling of
Amy's presence by her side.

"Now, my dear, we'd better go out for a walk," she told herself as she
turned away. But she threw a glance behind her.

In the weeks that followed she and Joe were more intensely alone
together than she could have imagined.

At first a few of Amy's friends kept dropping in every now and then.
But although their intentions were kindly enough, Ethel felt repelled by
them. She resented their having been Amy's friends. For swiftly and
quite unconsciously, in her resolute groping in the dark for solid
ground on which to stand, she was building up an ideal of her
sister--and these women jarred on that. They came to her direct from a
world, her sister's world, which she now vaguely felt to be cheap,
shallow, disillusioning. And she needed her illusions. By nature frank
to bluntness, she was not good at hiding dislikes; and her uneasy
visitors soon realized with relief that they were not wanted here.

Fa