This time the door close so quietly behind Ruth that Dorothy heard her outburst into tears on the other side of it. Second-hand woollies for her Bits!... Of course Amory Pratt had made the proposal with almost effusive considerateness. No doubt the twins, Corin and Bonniebell, _had_ outgrown them. Dorothy did not suppose for a moment that they were _not_ the best of their kind that money could buy; the Pratts seemed to roll in money. And beyond all dispute the winter _might_ come any morning now, and the garments _would_ just fit Jackie. But--her own Bits!... She had had her back to the bedroom window when the offer had been made; she knew that her sudden flush had not showed; and her voice had not changed as she had deliberately told her lie--that she had bought the children's winter outfits only the day before.... "I'm sure you won't have any difficulty in giving them away," she had concluded as she had passed to the bedroom door. "Far less difficulty than you'll find here," she might have added, but had forborne.... Other children's woollies for her little Jackie!---- What gave sting to the cut was that Jackie sorely needed them; but then it was not like Amory Pratt, Dorothy thought bitterly, to make a graceful gift of an unrequired thing. She must blunder into people's necessities. A gift of a useless Teddy Bear or of a toy that would be broken in a week Dorothy might not have refused; but mere need!--"Oh!" Dorothy exclaimed, twisting in her chair with anger.... What a day! What a life! And what a little thing thus to epitomize the whole hopeless standstill of their circumstances! And because it was a little thing, it had a power over Dorothy that twenty greater things would not have had. She was about to call the precious and disparaged Jackie when she thought better of it. Instead, she dropped her face into her hands and melted utterly. What Ruth did in the kitchen she did in the pond-room; and Jackie, who caught the contagion, filled the passage between with an inconsolable howling. It was into this house of lamentation that Stan entered at half-past four. "Steady, there!" he called to his younger son; and Jackie's bellow ceased instantaneously. "Ruth's c'ying, so I c'ied too," he confided solemnly to his father; and the two entered the pond-room together, there to find Dorothy also in tears. "Hallo, what's this?" said Stan. "Jackie, run and tell Ruth to hurry up with tea.... Head up, Dot--let's have a look at you----"