about the
house, was now my all-absorbing interest.

With no time to dream of love, with no thought of writing, I toiled
like a slave, wet with perspiration, dusty and unkempt. With my shirt
open at the throat and my sleeves rolled to the elbow, I passed from one
phase of the job to another, lending a hand here and a shoulder there.
In order that I might hasten the tearing down and clearing away, I
plunged into the hardest and dirtiest tasks, but at night, after the men
were gone, dark moods of deep depression came over me, moments in which
the essential futility of my powers overwhelmed me with something like
despair.

"What right have you to ask that bright and happy girl--any girl--to
share the uncertainties, the parsimony, the ineludible struggle of your
disappointing life?" I demanded of myself, and to this there was but one
answer: "I have no right. I have only a need."

Nevertheless, I wrote her each day a short account of my doings, and her
friendly replies were a source of encouragement, of comfort. She did not
know (I was careful to conceal them) the torturing anxieties through
which I was passing, and her pages were, for the most part, a pleasant
reflection of the uneventful, care-free routine of the camp. In spite of
her caution she conveyed to me, beneath her elliptical phrases, the fact
that she missed me and that my return would not be displeasing to her.
"When shall we see you?" she asked.

In one of her letters she mentioned--casually--that on Monday she was
going to Chicago with her sister, but would return to the camp at the
end of the week.

Something in this letter led me to a sudden change of plan. As mother
was now quite comfortable again I said to her, "Zuleema has gone to
Chicago to do some shopping. I think I'll run down and meet her and ask
her to help me select the curtains and wall-paper for your new room.
What do you say to that?"

"Go along!" she said instantly, "but I expect you to bring her home with
you."

"Oh, I can't do that," I protested. "I haven't any right to do
that--yet!"

The mere idea of involving the girl in my household problem seemed
exciting enough, and on my way down to the city I became a bit less
confident. I decided to approach the matter of my shopping
diplomatically. She might be alarmed at my precipitancy.

She was not alarmed--on the contrary her pleased surprise and her keen
interest in my mother's new chamber gave me confidence. "I want you to
help