"I took Uncle George for a walk yesterday, and Father the day before." "That's not what I mean. Why will you never go with Grace?" "I don't fit in. I feel like a great piece of furniture when I'm with her friends. I can't talk as they do. They have a way of making jokes--all about nothing and really not a bit funny--that turns me dumb. I don't know how they can think of such imbecilities." She did not add that she envied their facility, that their gay scraps of talk, their ease in each other's company, the way in which they wore their clothes and did their hair, shamed her for her silent awkwardness and robbed her of any comfort in the belief that she was alien because she was unique. Her eyes were quick, but they did not see that though she lacked the loveliness she had always wanted, her face had the beauty of her swift and vivid spirit, she had the pliant grace of a larch, the freshness of its early green and the courage which has caused that tree to be set in wild and desolate places. She thought the more highly of the intellect, and in this region she was aware that she overtopped the women of her acquaintance and the men with whom they danced, and laughed, and talked with such incomparable ease. Nancy uttered a platitude serenely. "It takes all sorts to make a world," she said. "I know, but there don't seem to be any of my sort--and I could be a friend!" "You are a friend, dear, to me and Father and Uncle George and Grace. Since you began to take care of us all, I think I've never been so happy. You mustn't think I haven't seen, and now I want to tell you in case I never have another chance. My heart was very bad last night--but don't tell Father. Don't worry him. The attacks must come, and one of them will take me with it. I don't want to tell anyone but you, Terry, and I tell you because you're strong." The colour rushed over Theresa's face, and she stammered as she spoke; but it was fear, not pride, that swamped her; though, in after silences, the words echoed back to her thrillingly. "You must let me sleep with you. I can't let you have attacks all alone in the dark like that. Pain"--she breathed the word--"must be so terrible alone. Doesn't Father wake? I should, if you moved." "So would he, but I don't move, you see. And I'm not going to be parted from him for the time that may be so short. And I've endured worse pangs, Theresa, far worse. Thank God, they're over." The faint smile deepened, the corners of her mouth were reminiscent, her lips had the softness of a girl's. "Where you give love, give trust, Theresa, when your great time comes." The wavering colour came back to Theresa's cheeks. She looked pityingly, adoringly, at her mother, and then her brain seemed to swell with reckless anger. "I'll never love!" she cried, "because I must trust where I love, and men--men are so faithless! Oh, I know!" She ceased, trembling, watching her slim, shaken wrists. She heard laughter.