The year had brought many disappointments like that, disappointments which found their way farther into the spirit because they dared not show on the surface. Of late there had been so many of them that it was growing hard to hold from her manner her inner chafing against them. There were times when all the people who loved her seemed trying to throw things in her way, and it was the more maddening because blindly done. It was hurting her relations with people; she hated them when they blunderingly stepped in the way of the thing that had come to mean everything to her. She was particularly anxious about this night for Stuart was going out of town on a business trip and she would not see him again for more than a week. It was her grandfather who made the first difficulty; as she was going up the stairs he called, "You going over to the Lawrences' tonight, Ruth?" When she had answered yes he continued: "It wouldn't be much out of your way, would it, to run on over to the Allens'?" She hesitated; anything her grandfather asked of her was hard to refuse, not only because she loved him and because he was old, but because it hurt her to see how he missed the visiting around among his old friends that his rheumatism had of late cut him off from. "Why--no," she answered, wondering just how she could get it in, for it did take her out of her way, and old Mr. Allen would want to talk to her; it was going to be hard to get away from Edith's anyway, and the time would be so short, for Stuart would have to leave for his train at half past nine. She quickly decided that she would go over there before dinner, even though it made her a little late. Maybe she didn't need to comb her hair, after all. She was starting up the stairs when her grandfather called: "Wait a minute. Come here, Ruth." She came back, twirling the fingers of one hand nervously. Her grandfather was fumbling in the drawer of his secretary. "I want you to take this letter--tell him I got it yesterday--" He stopped, peering at the letter; Ruth stood there with hand clenched now, foot tapping. "Why no, that's not the one," he rambled on; "I must have put it up above here. Or could it--" "Oh, I'm in a hurry, grandfather!" cried the girl. He closed the drawer and limped over to his chair. "Just let it go, then," he said in the hurt voice of one who has been refused a thing he cannot do for himself. "Now, grandfather!" Ruth cried, swiftly moving toward him. "How can you be so _silly_--just because I'm a little nervous about being late!" "Seems to me you're always a little nervous about something lately," he remarked, rising and resuming the leisurely search for the letter. "You young folks make such hard work of your good times nowadays. Anybody'd think you had the world on your shoulders."