"But it must make your room in Irving Place an empty spot to go back to," I replied. Ruth went over to the lamp and did something to the shade. "Oh," she said carelessly, "haven't I told you? I'm not going back. I've resigned from Van de Vere's. Do all sit down." Ruth might just as well have set off a cannon-cracker. We were startled to say the least. We stood and stared at her. "Do sit down," she repeated. "But, Ruth, why have you done this? Why have you resigned?" I gasped at last. She finished with the lamp-shade before she spoke. "I insist upon your sitting down," she said. "There. That's better." Then she gave a queer, low laugh and said, "I think it was the sight of the baby's little flannel shirt stretched over the wooden frame hanging in the bath-room that was the last straw that broke me before I wrote to Mrs. Scot-Williams." "But----" "There was some one immediately available to take my place at Van de Vere's--another protegee of Mrs. Scot-Williams. I had to decide quickly. Madge is improving every week, Oliver writes, but she has got to stay in Colorado at least during the winter, the doctor says. Becky is still far from strong. She was very ill this summer. She doesn't take to strangers. I think I'm needed here. It seemed necessary for me to stay." "Perfect nonsense," Tom growled. "There's no more call for you to give up your business than for Malcolm his. Perfectly absurd." "But oh, how fine--how fine of you, Ruth!" exclaimed Elise. "You shan't do it. You shan't," I ejaculated. "Don't all make a mistake, please," said Ruth. "It is no sacrifice. There's no unselfishness about it, no fine altruism. I'm staying because I want to. I'm happier here. Can't any of you understand that?" she asked. There was a quality in her voice that made us all glance at her sharply. There was a look in her eyes which reminded me of her as she had appeared in the suffrage parade. This sister of mine had evidently seen another vision. If it had made her cheeks a little pale, it had more than made up for it in the exalted tone of her voice and expression of her eyes. "You say you're happier here?" asked Elise. "Weren't you happy then, down there in New York, Ruth?" "Yes, for a while. But you see my life was like a circle uncompleted. In keeping trimmed the lights of a home even though not my own, even only for a short period, I am tracing in, ever so faintly, the yawning gap." "Gap! But Ruth, we thought----" She flushed a little in spite of herself. We were all staring hard at her. "You see," she went on, "I've never been needed before as I have this summer. A home has never depended upon me for its life before. I've liked it. I don't see why you're so surprised. It's natural for a woman to want human ties. Contentment has stolen over me with every little common task I have had to do." "But, Ruth," I stammered, "we never thought that this--housekeeping--such menial work as this, was meant for _you_."