Joyce looked at him in a kind of tired wonder. She knew there were things being said that were dissecting her very soul, and that by and by when she moved she would bleed, perhaps her soul might bleed to death with the sharpness of it all, but just now she had not the strength to resent, to say anything to refute the awful half-truths he was speaking, to shout out as she felt she ought, that he had no right to speak that way about her dear, dead father whom she had not known much, could scarcely remember, but had been taught by both mother and aunt to love dearly. She could only stand and stare at him as he talked. She was growing white to the lips. Her knees were shaking under her, and the children stared at her curiously, even Nannette eyed her strangely. She was summoning all her strength for an effort: “Cousin Eugene,” she said clearly as if she were talking to some one away off, and her voice steadied as she went on. “You know I don’t have to stay here if you feel this way. I will go!” And then, like a bird that suddenly sees an opening in its cage and sets its wings swiftly, she turned and walked out of the room, across the kitchen, and out the kitchen door into the evening sunlight and the sweet meadow breath. On the bench beside the door lay her hat covering her little worn handbag and books and papers. She swept them all up as she passed, and held them in front of her as she walked steadily on down the pebbled path among the new grass toward the garage, the blinding tears now coming and blurring every thing before her. “Let her alone!” she heard Gene sneer loudly, “She’ll go out to the garage and boo-hoo awhile and then she’ll come back and behave herself. Dishes? I should say not! Don’t you do a dish! Let her do ’em when she gets over her fit. It’ll do her good. She’ll be of some use to you after this.” Joyce swept away the tears with a quick hand and lifted her head. Why should she weep when she was walking away from this? She had wanted to go, had wondered and wished for an opening, and now it had come, why be sad? She was walking away into the beauty of the sunset. Smell the air! She drew a deep breath and went straight on past the garage, down through the garden to the fence, and stooping slipped between the bars and into the meadow. There were violets blooming among the grass here, blue as the sky, and nodding to her, dazzling in their blueness. There was a dandelion. How bright its gold! The world was before her. The examination was not over. But what of that? She could not go back to take her diploma anyway, but she was free, and God would take care of her somewhere, somehow.