augh behind them. A something somewhere was very commendable while it
remained abstract! Having a fine large understanding about Ann had
nothing to do with having Ann for a sister-in-law! "Calls" were less
beautiful when responded to by one's brother! _This_ (and this tore an
ugly wound) was what came of helping people in their quests for
happiness.

It was followed by a frantic longing to be with Mrs. Prescott--in the
shelter of her philosophy, hugging tight those things left by the women
of other days. Frightened, outraged, her impulse was to fly back to those
well worn ways of yesterday.

But that was running away. Ann was there. Ann with the radiance gone;
though, for just that moment, less stricken than defiant. There was
something of the cunning of the desperate thing cornered in the sullen
flash with which she said: "You talked a good deal about wanting me to be
happy. Used to think I had a right to be. When it was Captain Prescott--"

It was unanswerable. The only answer Katie would be prepared to make to
it was that she didn't believe, all things considered, it was a thing she
would have said. But doubtless people lost nice shades of feeling when
they became creatures at bay fighting for life.

And seemingly one would leave nothing unused. "I want you to know,
Katie, that I paid back that money. The missionary money. You made me
feel that it wasn't right. That I--that I ought to pay it back. I earned
the money myself--some work there was for me to do at school. I wanted
to--to buy a white dress with it." Ann was sobbing. "But I didn't. I
sent back the money."

Katie was wildly disposed to laugh. She did not know why, after having
worried about it so much, Ann's having paid back the missionary money
should seem so irrelevant now. But she did not laugh, for Ann was looking
at her as pleadingly, as appealingly, as Worth would have looked after he
had been "bad" and was trying to redeem it by being "good."

With a sob, Ann hid her face against her muff.

Seeing her thus, Katie made cumbersome effort to drag things to less
delicate, less difficult, ground.

"Ann dear," she began, "I--oh I'm _so_ sorry about this. But truly, Ann,
you wouldn't be at all happy with Wayne."

Ann raised her face and looked at her with something that had a dull
semblance to amusement.

"You see," Katie staggered on, "Wayne hasn't a happy temperament. He's
morose. Queer. It wouldn't do at all, Ann, because it would make you both