anyhow, somehow, to get it over with . . . and die before it
comes."

The little boy had been twisting himself despairingly, and now said in a
small voice, "Mother, I've tried and I've tried and I can't do that back
button."

His mother heard his voice and looked down at him uncomprehendingly for
a moment. He said, less resigned, impatience pricking through his tone,
"Mother, I _told_ you I never could reach that button behind."

She bent from her chair, mechanically secured the little garment, and
then, leaning back, looked down moodily at her feet. The little boy
began silently to put on and lace up his shoes.

Marise was aware of a dimming of the light in the inner room of her
consciousness, as though one window after another were being darkened. A
hushed, mournful twilight fell in her heart. Melancholy came and sat
down with her, black-robed. What could one feel except Melancholy at the
sight of the world of humanity, poor world, war-ridden, broken in
health, ruined in hope, the very nerves of action cut by the betrayal of
its desperate efforts to be something more than base.

* * * * *

Was that really Melancholy? Something else slid into her mind, something
watchful. She sat perfectly still so that no chance movement should
disturb that mood till it could be examined and challenged. There was
certainly something else in her heart beside sorrow over the miseries of
the after-war world.

She persisted in her probing search, felt a cold ray of daylight strike
into that gloom and recognized with amazement and chagrin what else it
was! Disgusting! There in the very bottom of her mind, lay still that
discomfort at beginning to look like Cousin Hetty! And so that wound to
her vanity had slowly risen again into her consciousness and clothed
itself in the ampler, nobler garments of impersonal Melancholy. . . .
"_Oh_," she cried aloud, impatiently, contemptuous of herself, "what
picayune creatures human beings are! I'm ashamed to be one!"

She started up and went to the window, looking out blankly at the
mountain wall, as she had at the newspaper, not seeing what was there,
her eyes turned inward. "Wait now, wait. Don't go off, half-cocked. Go
clear through with this thing," she exhorted herself. "There _must_ be
more in it than mere childish, silly vanity." She probed deep and
brought up, "Yes, there is more to it. In the first place I was priggish
and hypocritical when I tried to p