child's. It dawned on the gravity of her face with an effect of spring
moonlight. In it there was some of the mischief of fairyland.

"What _you_ need is--Millings," prescribed Sylvester. "Girlie and Babe
will wake you up. Yes, and the boys. You'll make a hit in Millings." He
contemplated her for an instant with his head on one side. "We ain't got
anything like you in Millings."

Sheila, looking out at the wide Nebraskan prairies that slipped
endlessly past her window hour by hour that day, felt that she would not
make a hit at Millings. She was afraid of Millings. Her terror of Babe
and Girlie was profound. She had lived and grown up, as it were, under
her father's elbow. Her adoration of him had stood between her and
experience. She knew nothing of humanity except Marcus Arundel. And he
was hardly typical--a shy, proud, head-in-the-air sort of man, who would
have been greatly loved if he had not shrunk morbidly from human
contacts. Sheila's Irish mother had wooed and won him and had made a
merry midsummer madness in his life, as brief as a dream. Sheila was all
that remained of it. But, for all her quietness, the shadow of his
broken heart upon her spirit, she was a Puck. She could make laughter
and mischief for him and for herself--not for any one else yet; she was
too shy. But that might come. Only, Puck laughter is a little unearthly,
a little delicate. The ear of Millings might not be attuned.... Just
now, Sheila felt that she would never laugh again. Sylvester's humor
certainly did not move her. She almost choked trying to swallow
becomingly the mother-in-law anecdote.

But Sylvester's talk, his questions, even his jokes, were not what most
oppressed her. Sometimes, looking up, she would find him staring at her
over the top of his newspaper as though he were speculating about