"Oh, Mrs. Dodson--if I could only do what you have done--be what you are...." There was no pretence in Judith's admiration as she looked up into the quiet, kindly face of one of the most misunderstood women of her community. It was not a beautiful face. Nature had not been kind to it. But it was a face which, once looked upon, could never afterward be forgotten. It had the beauty which comes of strength and courage and travail, the beauty with which one is never born, but which must be made. It was the face of one who has grasped life firmly with both hands, and through pain and discouragement, has hewn something which must endure always. Mrs. Dodson was silent at Judith's honest, if girlish, outburst. She smiled sadly, and her eyes clouded. "I have done little," she said softly. "And I am--little. I saw my road, long ago. I see it more clearly every day. But I'm not big enough to follow it--very far. I'm too timid. To go on that road, where I know I should go--where I know better and better as the years come--I should have had to leave everything behind. I wasn't equal to that. Those little things--they didn't mean much--they don't now ... but I can't shake them off--quite. I can't follow the road and take them too. And I can't rest with them and forget the road. So I've--tried to do both. I can't, of course--but I try. I try very hard. It makes me enemies. It makes me unhappy. Even my children--I've stayed partly for them--the road led to such a wild and desolate country--even they don't understand. Perhaps that's why I was so cruel to that young man to-night. He said things that I wanted to say--and couldn't." Mrs. Dodson, suddenly looking very old and tired and weak, faded away, and in her place Judith saw Good. "If we were angels," he was saying. "If ... but we're not. We're only humans...." Then Good vanished, and Mrs. Dodson, again her quiet, efficient self, reappeared. Her voice had changed, too. It was the calm, business-like tone which the world knew. "You have wealth, my dear. The pleasures of society no longer appeal. You have made a start. I see no reason for discouragement." "But I want to _start_," cried Judith. "I want to feel my hands on something." "There are a number of committees and boards on which you might serve--" "Oh, but that's the ordinary thing. I've done _that_." "Not exactly." Mrs. Dodson's voice was a trifle grim. "You were a sociological dilettante. You were an amateur, so to speak." "But it's so cut-and-dried." "You must first learn the ropes. You have to know your tools before you can use them. It will be dry and tedious, of course, and there will be no sense of accomplishment. It will be educational. The accomplishment--such as it is--will come later." "And then--when it comes--it will be reform?" She wondered why the implication was so distasteful.