"Why shouldn't they be, considering you?"

"It is really just as easy to do right as wrong, Kathleen," said Nancy
when the girls were going to bed one night.

"Ye-es!" assented Kathleen with some reservations in her tone, for she
was more judicial and logical than her sister. "But you have to keep
your mind on it so, and never relax a single bit! Then it's lots easier
for a few weeks than it is for long stretches!"

"That's true," agreed Nancy; "it would be hard to keep it up forever.
And you have to love somebody or something like fury every minute or you
can't do it at all. How do the people manage that can't love like that,
or haven't anybody to love?"

"I don't know." said Kathleen sleepily. "I'm so worn out with being
good, that every night I just say my prayers and tumble into bed
exhausted. Last night I fell asleep praying, I honestly did!"

"Tell that to the marines!" remarked Nancy incredulously.



IV

THE BROKEN CIRCLE


The three weeks were running into a month now, and virtue still reigned
in the Carey household. But things were different. Everybody but Peter