They seemed sweetly childish in their pleasure in the vine and Theodosia looked at them with wonder and detachment. The best thing in the world teased her for a reply. She saw that her aunt had cared for the vine and had become actual and present in her pride of it. She had brought it from a long distance and had cared for it along the way in the train, giving it water. It had come from the wall of some relative in Virginia. She turned to Mnemosyne, for the beautiful word came again and again to her ear once her grandfather had named it. He had told her of it before, Memory, the mother of all, the seed of the mind. It was a curious question, the query her uncle had made, as simple as breath; she thought that all the people in the world must know the answer or must be in pursuit of the answer to a question of such importance—the best thing in the world. She wondered if Mnemosyne might not be the answer, the best, and her mind swam dizzily in a sense of vaguely remembered beautiful words, their ideas ill-shaped, words remembered more for their beauty of tone than for their thought—asphodel, Mytilene. But there were other beautiful things, other best things. They eluded her, unnamed, receding down a long vista into her inner sight. She recalled particular occasions when the surrounding world had seemed good, a good place in which to be. Admiring words from others, caresses, gifts, all the people singing in the church—in the seed of each happening an insufficiency. There was never enough. They were on the portico again, the mottled shadows of the boughs falling on their faces. The voices became sharp and firm, pleasantly outlined, immense, governed by some relation to the vine on the wall and its great reach from the soil of the ground. In the moment all the people present became actors in a pageant and all the words they said seemed deeply significant as if they were proclaiming themselves now in their real and permanent, unillusory aspect, in their true cause and relation. Annie lay in the doorway with a picture book. Anthony Bell was talking, his hand upraised. Lucas came from the kitchen garden with a respectful message, affected embarrassment, his head bowed, the proper approach. Their voices stood with length and breadth, sharply edged. * * * * * Every day or two Theodosia would ask her aunt if she and Annie might go to see Aunt Deesie. The walk across the pasture and the cornfield was long, but the pleasure of Aunt Deesie’s yard was sweet. Aunt Deesie ironed the clothes, heating the irons on the open embers of the fire that burned in the yard. The baby always lay on the quilt and the small girls stood bashfully about. One day Theodosia took them some of the candy Tom Singleton had brought from the store. She could scarcely endure the joy of her loathing as she touched their fingers in giving them the sweets.