you think the color should become a brown-plush bear?" "It is not depressing." "It is the color of holly. And depression is not a sensation to cultivate, is it?" She paused to gaze across the river, already shadowed by approaching evening. "I believe in fighting it off with both hands; driving a spear right through the ugly thing and holding it up like Sir Sintram with that wriggly monster in the old picture." "You would be a good one to be in trouble with," he said abruptly. She disentangled his meaning from the extremely vague speech, and nodded serious assent. "Yes, perhaps. I'm used to making the most of things." "The best of them," he corrected. "Of course! The most best--why should anyone make more worst?" They laughed together. But directly the restless unhappiness flowed back into his eyes. "They do, though!" he exclaimed. "Then they are wrong, all wrong," she said decidedly. "They should set themselves right the moment they find it out." "But if they can't?" he urged, with a personal heat and protest. "Things aren't so simple as all that. Suppose they can't set one thing straight without knocking over a lot of others? You _cannot_ go cutting and slashing through like that!" "Oh, yes; you can," she contradicted, sitting very upright, her gray eyes fired. "You must; anyone must. It is cowardly to let things, crooked things, grow and grow. And one could not knock down anything worth while that easily. Good things are strong." He shook his head. But she had stirred him so that he sat silent for a while, then rather suddenly rose to take his leave. "You never told me your name," he remarked, looking down at her. He noticed again how supple and deft her fingers were, and their capable swiftness at the work. "No. Why?" she replied simply. "I don't know," he accepted the rebuke. "I--beg your pardon." "Oh, certainly. Holly is trying to shake hands before you go." Of course he and the baby had become friends. He carefully yielded his forefinger to the clutching hands, but he did not smile as usual. "Look here," he spoke out brusquely. "Just as an illustration that things are not as easily kept straight as you seem to think--I know a man who somehow got to following one woman around. I don't think he knows quite how. Of course, he admired her immensely, and liked her. Well, I suppose he felt more than that! But he never even imagined making love to her, because she was married. You see, he was a fool. One day when he called, she told him that she was going to get a divorce from her husband. She has the right. And the man found she expected to marry him, afterward; she thought he had meant that all along. What could he do? What can he do?" The baby gurgled merrily, dropping the forefinger and yawning. The girl laid down her work to tuck a coverlet 

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