"Billy, she's a miracle. She lives alone, all but old Mary to do the work. She's stiffened from rheumatism so that she sits in her chair nearly all day, and stumps round a little, in agony, with two canes. But she's had her life." "How has she had it, Florrie? In having Grant?" "Because all her choices were good choices. She took him when he was poor, and she helped him work. They had one son. He married a singer, a woman--well, like me. Maybe it was in the blood to want a woman like me. Then this boy and the singer had two sons--one of them clever. Peter Grant, you know. I suppose he's a genius, if there are such. The other has--a deformity." "I know," he nodded. "You wrote me." "I didn't write you all. He wasn't born with it. He was a splendid boy, but when he had the accident the mother turned against him. She couldn't help it. I see how it was, Billy. The pride of life, that's what it is--the pride of life." "Is he dwarfed?" "Heavens! he was meant for a giant, rather. He has great strength. Somehow he impresses you. But it's the grandmother that built him up, body and brain. Now he's a man grown, and she's made him. Don't you see, Billy? she's struck home every time." "Is she religious?" "Yes, she is. She prays." Her voice fell, with the word. She looked at him searchingly, as if he might understand better than she did the potency of that communion. "She's a Churchwoman, I suppose." "No, no. She only believes things--and prays. She told me one day Osmond--he's the deformed one--he couldn't have lived if she hadn't prayed." "That he would be better?" "No, she was quite explicit about that. Only that they would be taught how to deal with it--his trouble. To do it, she said, as God wished they should. Billy, it's marvelous." "Well, dear child," said Billy, "you can pray, too." Her old face grew pinched in its denial. "No," she answered sadly, "no. It wouldn't rise above the ceiling. What I mean is, Billy, that all our lives we're opening gates into different roads. Bessie Grant opened the right gate. She's got into a level field and she's at home there. But I shouldn't be. I only go and climb up and look over the bars. And I go stumbling along, hit or miss, and I never get anywhere." He was perplexed. He frowned a little. "Where do you want to get, Florrie?" he asked at length. She smiled into his face engagingly. "I don't know, Billy. Only where things don't bore me; where they are worth while." "But they always get to bore us--" he paused and she took him up. "You mean I'm bored because I am an old woman. I should say so, too, but then I look at that other woman and I know it isn't so. No, Billy, I took the wrong road." Billy looked at her a long time searchingly. "Well," he said at last, "what can we do about it? I mean, besides writing fake memoirs and then going ag'in our best friends when they beg us to own up?"