Here Ariel returned. She stood in the doorway and almost burst into song in Hugh’s direction. “I can’t go into town with you after all! _I’ve got a job._ The job I told you about. And it’s already begun.” Hugh went toward her. “Mother has just told me about it. Is it a job you really like, Ariel? Think you want to give it a try?” Ariel treated those questions as humor. “Isn’t it wonderful!” she cried. “Oh, I’m the luckiest girl!” Hugh appeared to be joining in her transports. Mrs. Weyman was astounded by the inexplicable right-about-face in Hugh’s attitude she saw taking place before her eyes. He was actually saying “I congratulate you. I think you’ll see it through too,—be a grand nurse and companion, and be as independent as blazes right up to the day of your picture exhibition, Ariel. After that, we’ll see what next. But now it appears to be just a matter of marking time.” Ariel was standing directly in morning sunlight, where it made a fan on the floor and laced the door jambs with light. Was she on her toes, just hovering? It was only for an instant, and might have been illusion caused by too much white sunlight, but to him she was a spirit dancing on winter air—as her father would see her, were he here in the Weyman dining room instead of way off in that dream loggia with the dream butterflies over the dream sea. Her body seemed elongated, taller with its upward lift. She was reaching out her arms, not toward the snowy air and the sky, however, but simply to take the coat and pocketbook which Hugh had picked up for her from the chair where she had tossed them before breakfast in readiness for train-catching. All that Mrs. Weyman felt was that Ariel was pleased over having stolen a march on herself and Hugh. Then the unaccountable girl was gone. “Aren’t you a little unreliable, Hugh? You appeared to agree with me that the whole thing was nonsense. Then, right on top of that, you congratulated Ariel! Are you or are you not going up to Grandam now and straighten her out as to what she can and can’t do.” “I’d rather say _not_. I think we can trust Grandam to go lightly with Ariel, though it is rather whimsical of her! Not so inappropriate though, once you get used to the idea. There’s something goddess-like about Grandam. So she can do with lovely service. And it’s better, worlds better, than Macy’s and the American Girls’ Club, all thanks to Joan just the same for her interest—in us.” “You’re behaving weirdly! But Ariel won’t last with Grandam a week, so in the end it won’t matter. Anyway, now I can invite people to dinner without wondering what’s to be done with the child.” Sunday. A gray dismal afternoon at Wild Acres. Mrs. Weyman was driving with friends to New York to hear a Philharmonic concert.