er put out a reluctant hand and touched her quietly. "Come, dear
Elly, about time to start to school."

As she leaned across the table, stretching her neck towards the child,
she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the other side of the
room, and thought, "Oh, how awful! I begin to look as Cousin Hetty does,
with that scrawny neck. . . ."

She repulsed the thought vigorously. "Well, what does it matter if I do?
There's nothing in my life, any more, that depends on my looking young."

At this thought, something perfectly inchoate, which she did not
recognize, began clawing at her. She pushed it off, scornfully, and
turned to Elly, who got up from the table and began collecting her books
into her school-bag. Her face was rosy and calm with the sweet ineffable
confidence of a good child who has only good intentions. As she packed
her books together, she said, "Well, I'm ready. I've done my grammar,
indefinite pronouns, and I can say all those river-tributaries
backwards. So now I can start. Good-bye, Mother dear." Marise bent to
kiss the shining little face. "Good-bye, Elly."

To herself she thought, as her face was close to the child's, "I wonder
if I look to my little girl as Cousin Hetty used to look to me?" and
startled and shocked that the idea kept recurring to her, assuming an
importance she was not willing to give it, she cried out to herself,
"Oh, stop being so paltry about that!"

Aloud she said, "Don't forget to put your rubbers on. Have you a clean
handkerchief? Oh, _Elly_, look at your nails! Here, hand me the
nail-file over there, Paul. I'll clean them more quickly than you,
dear."

As she cleaned the nails, one eye on the grimly relentless clock, the
ideas flicked through her mind like quick, darting flames. "What
mediaeval nonsense we do stuff into the school-children's head. What an
infamous advantage we take of the darlings' trust in us and their
docility to our purposes! My dear little daughter with her bright face
of desire-to-do-her-best! What wretched chaff she is getting for that
quick, imaginative brain of hers! It's not so bad for Paul, but . . . oh,
even for him what nonsense! Rules of grammar, names of figures of
speech . . . stuff left over from scholastic hair-splitting! And the
tributaries of rivers . . . !" She glanced up for an instant and was struck
into remorse by the tranquil expression of peace in the little girl's
clear eyes, bent affectionately on her mother. "Oh, my poo