, in the chair by the window. Old lady Mandle had
lived to be seventy and had acquired much wisdom. One cannot live to be
seventy without having experienced almost everything in life. But to
crystallize that experience of a long lifetime into terms that would
express the meaning of life--this she had never tried to do. She could
not do it now, for that matter. But she groped around, painfully, in her
mind. There had been herself and Hugo. And now Hugo's wife and the child
to be. They were the ones that counted, now. That was the law of life.
She did not put it into words. But something of this she thought as she
sat there in her plain white nightgown, her scant white locks pinned in
a neat knob at the top of her head. Selfishness. That was it. They
called it love, but it was selfishness. She must tell them about it
to-morrow--Mrs. Lamb, Mrs. Brunswick, and Mrs. Wormser. Only yesterday
Mrs. Brunswick had waxed bitter because her daughter-in-law had let a
moth get into her husband's winter suit.

"I never had a moth in my house!" Mrs. Brunswick had declared. "Never.
But nowadays housekeeping is nothing. A suit is ruined. What does my
son's wife care! I never had a moth in my house."

Ma Mandle chuckled to herself there in the darkness. "I bet she did. She
forgets. We all forget."

It was very hot to-night. Now and then there was a wisp of breeze from
the lake, but not often.... How red Lil's eyes had been ... poor girl.
Moved by a sudden impulse Ma Mandle thudded down the hall in her bare
feet, found a scrap of paper in the writing-desk drawer, scribbled a
line on it, turned out the light, and went into the empty front room.
With a pin from the tray on the dresser she fastened the note to Lil's
pillow, high up, where she must see it the instant she turned on the
light. Then she scuttled down the hall to her room again.

She felt the heat terribly. She would sit by the window again. All the
blood in her body seemed to be pounding in her head ... pounding in her
head ... pounding....

At ten Hugo and Lil came in, softly. Hugo tiptoed down the hall, as was
his wont, and listened. The room was in darkness. "Sleeping, Ma?" he
whispered. He could not see the white-gowned figure sitting peacefully
by the window, and there was no answer. He tiptoed with painful
awkwardness up the hall again.

"She's asleep, all right. I didn't think she'd get to sleep so early on
a scorcher like this."

Lil turned on the light in her room