py ending, none the less actual to her mind because
lost in so vague a golden shimmer. Her father's house, as familiar to
her as her hand, took on a new and rich dignity as the background for
the unfolding of that wonderful creature, herself; that unknown, future,
grown-up self, which was to be all that everyone who loved her expected,
and more than she in her inexperience knew how to expect.

She was in a little heaven, made up of the most ingenuous aspirations,
the innocence of which seemed to her a guarantee of their certain
fulfillment. Her fervent desire to be good was equal to and of the same
quality as her desire to be a successful debutante. It would make her
family so happy to have her both. These somewhat widely diverging aims
were all a part of the current of her life, the impulse to be what those
she loved would like to have her. It was not that she was willing to
give up her own individuality to gratify the impulse, but rather that
she did not for an instant conceive of the necessity for such a
sacrifice. It was part of her immense happiness that she had always
loved to be what it pleased everyone to have her, and that, apparently,
people wished to have her only what she wished to be. She was like a
child guarded by her elders from any knowledge of forbidden food. All
the goodies of which she had ever heard were hers for the asking. In
such a carefully arranged nursery it would be perversity to doubt the
everlasting quality of the coincidence between one's desires and one's
obedience. It was no more remarkable a coincidence than that both dew
and sunshine were good for the grass over which she now ran lightly to
another corner of the grounds about her parents' house. Here, just
outside the circle of deep shade cast by an exuberantly leaved maple,
she stood for a moment, her hands full of grapes, her eyes wandering
about the green, well-kept double acres called diversely in the family
"the grounds" (Mrs. Emery's name) and "the yard." Lydia always clung to
her father's name; she had very little inborn feeling for the finer
shades of her mother's vocabulary. Mrs. Emery rejoiced in the careless
unconsciousness of the importance of such details, but she felt that
Lydia should be cautioned against going too far. It was one of the
girl's odd ways to be fond of the few phrases left over in the Emery
dictionary from their simpler earlier days. She always called the two
servants "the girls" or "the help" instead of "t