the thesis yet!"

At that Missy, without thinking, unwarily said:

"Oh, yes, I have, mother."

"Oh," said her mother interestedly. "What is it?"

Missy suddenly remembered and blushed--grown-ups seldom understand
unless you're definite.

"Well," she amended diffidently, "I've got the subject."

"What is it?" persisted mother.

Everybody was looking at Missy. She poured the cream over her berries,
took a mouthful; but they all kept looking at her, waiting.

"'Ships That Pass in the Night,'" she had to answer.

"For Heaven's sake!" ejaculated Aunt Nettie. "What're you going to write
about that?"

This was the question Missy had been dreading. She dreaded it because
she herself didn't know just what she was going to write about it.
Everything was still in the first vague, delightful state of just
feeling it--without any words as yet; and grown-ups don't seem to
understand about this. But they were all staring at her, so she must say
something.

"Well, I haven't worked it out exactly--it's just sort of pouring in
over me."

"What's pouring over you?" demanded Aunt Nettie.

"Why--the sea of Life," replied Missy desperately.

"For Heaven's sake!" commented Aunt Nettie again.

"It sounds vague; very vague," said father. Was he smiling or
frowning?--he had such a queer look in his eyes. But, as he left the
table, he paused behind her chair and laid a very gentle hand on her
hair.

"Like to go out for a spin in the car?"

But mother declined for her swiftly. "No, Missy must work on her thesis
this evening."

So, after supper, Missy took tablet and pencil once more to the
summerhouse. It was unusually beautiful out there--just the kind of
evening to harmonize with her uplifted mood. Day was ending in still and
brilliant serenity. The western sky an immensity of benign light, and
draped with clouds of faintly tinted gauze.

"Another day is dying," Missy began to write; then stopped.

The sun sank lower and lower, a reddening ball of sacred fire and, as
if to catch from it a spark, Missy sat gazing at it as she chewed her
pencil; but no words came to be caught down in pencilled tangibility.
Oh, it hurt!--all this aching sweetness in her, surging through and
through, and not able to bring out one word!

"Well?" enquired mother when, finally, she went back to the house.

Missy shook her head. Mother sighed; and Missy felt the sigh echoing in
her own heart. Why were words, relatively so much less than ins