Mrs. Carew frowned and drew back a little coldly. The slight touch of
joy and animation that had come into her face fled, leaving only a
dispirited fretfulness that was plainly very much at home there.

"Oh, of course! I might have known," she said. "You never stay--here."

"Here!" Della Wetherby laughed merrily, and threw up her hands; then,
abruptly, her voice and manner changed. She regarded her sister with
grave, tender eyes. "Ruth, dear, I couldn't--I just couldn't live in
this house. You know I couldn't," she finished gently.

Mrs. Carew stirred irritably.

"I'm sure I don't see why not," she fenced.

Della Wetherby shook her head.

"Yes, you do, dear. You know I'm entirely out of sympathy with it all:
the gloom, the lack of aim, the insistence on misery and bitterness."

"But I AM miserable and bitter."

"You ought not to be."

"Why not? What have I to make me otherwise?"

Della Wetherby gave an impatient gesture.

"Ruth, look here," she challenged. "You're thirty-three years old. You