on as she sat in Patricia's room, mending the russet
frock. It looked odd to see Constance with a needle, but she was deft
with it.

"I guess I'm more used to being by myself," replied Patricia, not
wishing to go into details. "I'd never been alone, you know, and it was
strange at first."

Constance nodded, but her clear eyes showed she understood. As she went
on with her sewing she said cheerfully:

"It _is_ better to rub up against all sorts of people. You don't come to
realize what living means till you've seen what the rest of them are up
to. Cotton-wool isn't the environment to bring out beauty, after all."

Patricia smiled absently. "But all the pretty things are put in nice
pink cotton-wool," she said, thinking of the jeweler's boxes in
Rosamond's case.

"Ah, but that's when the pretty things are finished and done," cried
Constance, dropping her work and leaning forward with fire in her eyes.
"How about when they are being shaped? There are hammers there then, and
fires, too, and they are battered into their beautiful shapes with cruel
blows. My word, Patricia Kendall, can't you see it? It takes plenty of
hammering and burning before it gets to the cotton-wool stage."

Patricia caught her earnestness. "The trees and flowers and skies aren't
hammered into shape," she argued, with half a vision of what Constance
meant.

"They are the result of hammering, perhaps," returned Constance quickly,
"but that doesn't matter so much. They're the works of God, and that
sort of thing can just grow, like a lovely disposition, but the things
of earth have to be made into shape with rough hands. Look at the people
you know. How many of the selfish, pampered ones amount to a row of
pins? Can you honestly say that you know anyone who hasn't been the
better for a little hammering?"

Patricia thought swiftly of Doris Leighton, of Mrs. Nat, and she shook
her head.

"That's all that's the matter with the Fair Rosamond," Constance
explained. "She's been in cotton-wool all her life, and it's going to
rob her of her chance to give something to the world----"

She broke off abruptly, seeming to be much moved, and, rising with a
disturbed air, walked up and down for a few minutes while Patricia tried
to go on with her own darning as though nothing unusual had happened.

Constance dropped into her chair with a low laugh. "Don't mind my
preaching, Miss Pat," she said without any suggestion of apology in her
candid tone. "I alwa