horned
caterpillars were feeding. "I don't feel like ever sleeping in this room
again," she added, exasperated.

"Why, Sis," he explained mildly, "those are the caterpillars of the
magnificent Regal moth! They're perfectly harmless, and it's jolly to
watch them tuck away walnut leaves. You'll like to have them here in
your room when you understand how to weigh them on these bully little
scales I've just had sent up from Tiffany's."

But his sister was too annoyed and too tired to speak. She stood limply
leaning against Kathleen while her brother disposed of his uncanny
menagerie, talking away very cheerfully all the while absorbed in his
grewsome pets.

But it was not to his sister, it was to Kathleen that his pride in his
achievements was naively displayed; his running accompaniment of chatter
was for Kathleen's benefit, his appeals were to her sympathy and
understanding, not to his sister's.

Geraldine watched him in silence. Tired, not physically very well, this
home-coming meant something to her. She had looked forward to it, and to
her brother, unconsciously wistful for the protection of home and kin.
For the day had been a hard one; she was able to affix the red-cross
mark to her letter to Duane that morning, but it had been a bad day for
her, very bad.

And now as she stood there, white, nerveless, fatigued, an ache grew in
her breast, a dull desire for somebody of her own kin to lean on; and,
following it, a slow realisation of how far apart from her brother she
had drifted since the old days of cordial understanding in the
schoolroom--the days of loyal sympathy through calm and stress, in
predatory alliance or in the frank conflicts of the squared circle.

Suddenly her whole heart filled with a blind need of her brother's
sympathy--a desire to return to the old intimacy as though in it there
lay comfort, protection, sanctuary for herself from all that threatened
her--herself!

Kathleen was assisting Scott to envelop the frog in a bath towel for the
benevolent purpose of transplanting him presently to some other
bath-tub; and Kathleen's golden head and Scott's brown one were very
close together, and they were laughing in that intimate undertone
characteristic of thorough understanding. Her brother's expression as he
looked up at Kathleen Severn, was a revelation to his sister, and it
pierced her with a pang of loneliness so keen that she started forward
in sheer desperation, as though to force a path t