"You don't know all the differences, Lucy," she said sadly. "There's something the trouble with me--something left out--something that I cannot blame Bob for feeling sorry about. I believe I'll tell you. You see, Bob met me under a misapprehension, and I've been trying to live up to his misapprehension ever since. The first time he ever saw me I was tucked away in a little room by myself looking at the picture of a sick child. I was crying a little. He thought that I was feeling badly out of sympathy for the mother of the child--the mother in me, you see, speaking to the mother in her. I wasn't really. I was crying because the house that the picture happened to hang in was so dull and grimy beside Grassmere. I was crying for the luxuries I had lost. I never told Bob the truth about that picture until last week, and all this time he's been looking upon me as an ideal woman--a kind of madonna, mother of little children, you understand, and all that--and I'm not. Something must be wrong with me. I don't even long to be--yet. Oh, you see how unfitted I am for a man to weave idealistic pictures about--like that. It seemed to hurt Bob when I told him the truth about myself, hurt him terribly, as if I'd tumbled over and broken his image of me--at the cradle, you know. Oh, Lucy, what an unnatural girl I am! I don't admire myself for it. I wish I could be what Bob thinks, but I can't. I can't." "You aren't unnatural. You're just as human as you can be, Ruth. I felt just the way you do before I was married, and most every girl does as young as you, too. Bob ought to give you chance to grow up." "Grow up! Oh, Lucy, I feel so old! I feel used up and put by already. I've lived my life and haven't I made a botch of it?" She laughed shortly. "And what shall I do with the botch now? I can't stay here. It would break my heart to stay here where I had hoped to be so happy--everything reminding me, you know. No, I can't stay here." "Of course you can't, Ruth. We'll think of a way." "And I simply can't go back to Edith," she went on, "after knowing Bob. I don't want to go out to Michigan with Tom and Elise. I hate Michigan. Dear me! I don't know what I shall do. I'm discouraged. Once I was eager and confident, filled with enthusiasm and self-pride. Like that old hymn, you know. How does it go? 'I loved to choose my path and see, but now lead Thou me on. I loved the garish day, and spite of fears, Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years.' That is what I repeat over and over to myself. 'Lead, kindly light, amidst th' encircling gloom.' The encircling gloom! Oh, dear!" She suddenly broke off, "I wish morning would come." It did finally, and with it, when the approaching sun began to pinken the eastern sky, sleep for my tormented sister. CHAPTER XVI A FAMILY CONFERENCE