I am a greedy butterfly flitting in sunlight. Enviable, despicable. But approval of my way of being speaks in me, a secret voice that knows no tribunals. The joy and ease of this evening-lit life is a presage because it is a fulfilment. Man never is, but always to be blest. But I _am_ blest. _Alles ist relativ._ I am blessed beyond anything I ever dreamed of, within these inexorable circumstances. The happiness that came when they were even bleaker was a presage. Of what? Someone says there is nothing meaner than making the best of things. But happiness is incurable. A thing you can’t help. Perhaps it is the result of being a woman. One of Wells’ crawling cabs waiting to be hailed? Bosh. If I wait for anyone it is for one who will show himself to have been hailed by the same kind of happiness. 2 Mrs. Cameron running singing up the stairs, pushed open the door and stood tall, a bright questing figure; determinedly bright, a deliberately cheerful blue overall covering all but the sleeves of her multi-coloured gown; hanging from her arm a great basket of primroses. “Good morning,” she laughed. “How ist with thee?” Miriam delighted in the gaiety of colour she made standing there in the flood of top-light; in the heroic tilt of her head, in everything but the deliberately rousing, deliberately gloom-flouting ring of her laugh, which yet so frequently breaking forth, was the thing that compelled her tired eyes, tired bright hair and thin face into harmony with the gay colours of her house and clothing. She smiled from her place at the table, made room for Mrs. Cameron in her mind and prepared to squander, in seeing life with her, a bit more of the morning hour. Mrs. Cameron came in pleased, and began at once with her legends. Miriam read off in her own thoughts legends to match. It was a clear shape, deliberate. A way of ignoring all but the shining surfaces. Of setting everything, even the old woman dying penniless in the Mews, in a light that made surfaces shine. But her way of denying gloom brought gloom in the end. Spread it everywhere. Miriam felt herself drooping, was glad when she rose spindling up to her full gay height and settling herself on her feet with a little spring that made the primrose bunches jostle each other in the basket. “I’m off to kirk with Donald. A special service. There’s a call,” for the first time her face clouded, “a need abroad in the air for intercession, Mr. Groat says, a _wonderful_ turning for help and guidance. _Such_ a hopeful sign.” “Yes,” said Miriam sympathetically, “certainly it is.” But her mind was arguing that there is nothing in the world that is not a hopeful sign.