Out of the mouth came speech. Rhoda had Julia Deering as a refrain. There was a rhyming sequence between his father and the Professor. Adelaide was at once a low refrain and an epigram that bit under a soft semblance. Strangely, his mother figured little by herself. But her part was never lacking. She had the ubiquity of intonation. His impressions crystallized, drew back into actual events. But these events from which logically his impressions had gained life seemed a tracing not to a former, but to a later thing. The Pattern was clear in Quincy’s mind before the events were clear, that caused it. * * * * * Above all, there was an afternoon, spent in her room with Adelaide. “If you have time, Quint,” she had said to him on the first evening after his arrival, “I hope we’ll see something of each other.” “I have no engagements, Adelaide.” So, when the time came: “Shall we just talk, this once?” she asked him. They went up to her room. It had been “Rhoda’s room” when the two sisters shared it. But Rhoda had been married nearly a year. Yet, the old name and the old association clung to Quincy as they arose from luncheon--Marsden, Adelaide, his mother and himself. “Well, children, I must run.” Sarah looked at her daughter. “It wouldn’t hurt you, Adelaide, to come along and help your mother.” It was a case of belated Christmas shopping--gifts Sarah had overlooked. “Mother, Quint and I have planned a cozy afternoon upstairs in my room.” Sarah gazed tragically at the window. The sleet pounded against it like a snare-drum. She had discovered lately that Adelaide was very prone to make a sanctuary in her room. She had to say something. This inspired her. “And what would you have done, if Rhoda were still here with you?” she asked. “But she isn’t, Mother.” “Perhaps,” judged Marsden, opening a book, “it is only fair Adelaide should have some benefit out of her loss of Rhoda.” “Oh, very well, I’ll go alone,” Sarah shifted her point, with unconscious agility. And once more she observed the storm, as if she had been called upon to brave it. “Let your Mother go alone in the snow.” “I’ll help you into the machine, Mama,” said Quincy. This irritated Sarah. The mention of the car lessened the woman’s heroism in braving such a storm to gladden a few more forgotten hearts. And what right had a son to deprive a woman of her heroism, whom wealth had deprived already of her less far-fetched qualities? But at last, Sarah got off. As Marsden settled in his splendid chair, he smiled quizzically at Adelaide, left alone with him for a minute. “What are you going to talk about?” he asked.