Gradually the inner side of the years was turned out by Doris's careful questions and Joan's quiet simplicity. She revealed so much now that she found that her view of life had a dramatic interest. It appeared, quite innocently, that Nancy could assume any position in order to win her way. "She always speaks truth, Auntie Dorrie," Joan loyally defended, "but she can make truth out of such queer things; it just _is_ truth to Nancy, for she doesn't want to hurt people's feelings. Mary likes Nancy best, for I cannot make truth when I want to. Aunt Dorrie--truth is--a--_a thing_, isn't it?" "Yes, darling. But we--we see it differently, that is all." This was comforting to Joan, and she smiled. Then Mary again took the centre of the stage--Mary's interpretations, all coloured with the mystery of her desolate childhood; her old superstitions and power to control by the magic of her imagination. There were certain tales, it seemed, that were held as bribes. Nancy would always succumb to the lures; Joan, only to a few. "What are they, dear? I love fairy stories, you know." Doris was keeping her voice cool and calm. "Why, Mary says there is a Rock on a big mountain that is--bewitched! And everything near it is, too. She says things grow on it and you look at them and they are alive, and you can--can, well, use them! Mary saw a road once and just went up on it--it was a bewitched road, and she got--lost!" Joan's eyes widened. "Mary says she'll have to find her way back somehow, and if Nancy and I are naughty, she'll go and find it at once! Nancy is afraid, but I told Mary I'd follow her! "And then Mary said that once she just longed and longed for a doll--she had never had one--and she saw The Ship on The Rock and she went up to it--that was before she got lost on the road--and she asked the captain of The Ship for a doll, and he said he would send one to her. And she went home and that very night--that _very_ night, Aunt Dorrie, she looked in a room where she heard a funny noise and she saw a live doll! And while she was looking she saw a tall big lady bring in another. You see, when The Rock gets alive, everything is alive and Mary had forgot that--and so the dolls were--were babies. Nancy believes that, but I--tried it on Nancy's dolls--and it isn't true!" The rain outside beat wildly against the windows; the wind lashed the vines and roared down the chimney. "Are--you asleep, Aunt Dorrie?" The silence awed Joan. "No, dear heart. I am just thinking." And so Doris was--thinking that she was walking in the dark. Her own small flashlight had seemed enough to guide her, and here she discovered that it had only shown her one path, the one she had chosen, and all the other paths--Mary's, Nancy's, and Joan's--had been disregarded. Suddenly it seemed as dangerous to have too much faith as too little.