Mildred was used to being misunderstood by her
mother, who had long since been made hopelessly dull
by the suffocating life she led and by pain from her
feet, which never left her at ease for a moment except
when she had them soaking in cold water. Mrs. Gower
had been born with ordinary feet, neither ugly nor
pretty and entirely fit for the uses for which nature
intended feet. She had spoiled them by wearing shoes
to make them look smaller and slimmer than they were.
In steady weather she was plaintive; in changeable
weather she varied between irritable and violent.

Said Mildred to her brother: ``How much--JUST how much
is there?''

``I can't say exactly,'' replied her brother, who had
not yet solved to his satisfaction the moral problem of
how much of the estate he ought to allow his mother
and sister and how much he ought to claim for himself
--in such a way that the claim could not be disputed.

Mildred looked fixedly at him. He showed his uneasiness
not by glancing away, but by the appearance of
a certain hard defiance in his eyes. Said she:

``What is the very most we can hope for?''

A silence. Her mother broke it. ``Mildred, how
CAN you talk of those things--already?''