those arrogantly pretending to know better, and where she could devote a
quiet life to the bringing up of her children.

The little boy sympathised with her. He knew what it was to be
disappointed in one's family. The family he would have chosen for his own
was that of which two excellent views were given on the circus bills. In
one picture they stood in line, maddeningly beautiful in their pink
tights, ranging from the tall father and mother down through four children
to a small boy that always looked much like himself. In the other picture
these meritorious persons were flying dizzily through the air at the very
top of the great tent, from trapeze to trapeze, with the littlest boy
happily in the greatest danger, midway in the air between the two proud
parents, who were hurling him back and forth.

It was absurd to think of anything like this in connection with a family
of which only one member had either courage or ambition. One had only to
study Clytie or Grandfather Delcher a few moments to see how hopeless it
all was.

The next best life to be aspired to was that of a house-painter, who could
climb about unchided on the frailest of high scaffolds, swing from the
dizziest cupola, or sway jauntily at the top of the longest ladder--always
without the least concern whether he spilled paint on his clothes or not.

Then, all in a half-hour, one afternoon, both he and Nancy seemed to cross
a chasm of growth so wide that one thrilled to look back to the farther
side where all objects showed little and all interests were juvenile. And
this phenomenon, signalised by the passing of the Gratcher, came in this
wise. As they rested from play--this being a time when the Gratcher was
most likely to be seen approaching by him of the Gratcher-eye, the usual