ing from the swaying vehicle--she felt as if
she were on top of the world and that it was keeping time to the tune
she wanted to sing. She looked so lovely that the conductor grinned
delightedly as he remarked:

"Snappy weather, miss!" and Joan nodded in friendly fashion and agreed.
She walked to the old home, standing with drawn blinds by the little,
close-locked park. It looked stately and reserved as one of the family
might have done. It smilingly held its tongue.

"I'd like to see the sunken room and the fountain," Joan thought. "I
cannot imagine it with the fountain and the birds still. They will never
be still for me!"

She was a bit surprised to feel how far she had travelled from the Joan
who was part of Nancy and the sunken room. It was quite shocking to find
that she was not missing Nancy. She wondered if she were heartless and
selfish? But after all, how could one be missed from a life in which she
had never, could never, have part? And full well Joan realized that in
this big venture of hers the old, except as a stepping-stone, was
separated forever.

"If I become famous"--and Joan, tripping along, felt as if fame were as
possible for her as the luncheon she was now feeling the need of--"if I
become famous then they will understand, but even then my life and
theirs will be different."

This point of view made Joan feel important, tragic, but desolate.

"I'm hungry," she thought, seriously, and made her way to a restaurant,
where once she had gone with Doris while on a wonderful shopping
expedition. The place was little changed; it had passed into other
hands, but the menu proudly proclaimed the same enticing dishes.

Joan ordered what once had seemed the food of the gods, but to her now
it was as chaff.

Across the table, made dim by her misty eyes, she seemed to see Doris
smiling fondly, faithfully, at her. Doris's power over people was
largely due to that faith she had in them.

"And I will be all you want me to be, Aunt Dorrie!" Joan promised that
while she choked down the food. "I feel as if I were in the bear's
house," she mused, whimsically. "I'm half afraid that I'll be pounced
upon."

And so she paid her bill and went back, via the bus, to Sylvia. She ran
up the long flights of stairs and burst in upon Sylvia with the
announcement that "nothing would count if you didn't have someone to
come home and tell it to." And then she forgot her glooms while they
prepared an evening meal more cons