The servants snubbed, Missy proceeded to arrange the bonbons. This necessitated going to the china-closet for a dish to put them on. She hated this. She wished herself out of the place; her cheeks grew scarlet, stumbling about among _his_ plates and glasses, his decanters and soup tureens. She heard low talking and laughing in the kitchen. What a fool she had been to put herself in this position! What did Jay have a birthday for, and tempt her out of her resolution? And then she remembered the poor young mother, the anniversary of whose sufferings they were keeping without a thought of her. She seemed to be fading out of the memories of all, loving and unloving, among whom, only a year ago, she had had her place. She was no more than a name now to her children. Who could tell whether her husband remembered her departure with relief or remorse, or remembered her at all? New servants moved about the house which she had left; new household usages prevailed; nothing of her seemed left. Here was one who had called herself her friend, who had thought of her for the first time to-day--this day, which her throes should have made sacred to her memory. Missy tried to catch at the shadow which seemed passing away from her; tried to realize that this woman of whom she thought, had been, was, the wife of the man whom she had grown to like, to listen to, to wonder about. She tried to remember that this dark-eyed, pure-featured picture was the mother of tawny, snub-nosed, ruddy Jay; but it was all a picture, an effort of the brain, it was no reality. The reality seemed, Jay, in the flesh, she who felt she owned him, and the father about whom she could not keep her resolution, and the household which she had reconstructed.