he
flame from her eyes. She sank back again on the couch. She put her hands
over her face and sobbed. "At last," she said strangely. "At last! At
last! At last!"

"What shall we do, Julia?" Peachy asked stonily.

"Rebel!" answered Julia.

"But how?"

"Refuse to let them cut Angela's wings."

"Oh, I would not dare open the subject with Ralph," Peachy said in
a terror-stricken voice. "In the mood he's in, he'd cut her wings
tonight."

"I don't mean to tell him anything about it," Julia replied. "Rebel in
secret. I mean--they overcame us once by strategy. We must beat them now
by superior strategy."

"You don't really mean anything secret, do you, Julia?" Lulu
remonstrated. "That wouldn't be quite fair, would it?"

And curiously enough, Julia answered in the exact words that Honey had
used once. "Anything's fair in love or war--and this is both. We can't
be fair. We can't trust them. We trusted them once. Once is enough for
me."

"But how, Julia?" Peachy asked. Her voice had now a note of
querulousness in it. "How are we going to rebel?"

Julia started to speak. Then she paused. "There's something I must ask
you first. Tell me, all of you, what did you do with your wings when the
men cut them off?"

The rage faded out of the four faces. A strange reticence seemed to
blot out expression. The reticence changed to reminiscence, to a deep
sadness.

Lulu spoke first. "I thought I was going to keep my wings as long as I
lived. I always thought of them as something wonderful, left over from
a happier time. I put them away, done up in silk. And at first I used
to look at them every day. But I was always sad afterwards--and--and
gradually, I stopped doing it. Honey hates to come home and find me sad.
Months went by--I only looked at them occasionally. And after a while,
I did not look at them at all. Then, one day, after Honey built the
fireplace for me, I saw that we needed something--to--to--to sweep the
hearth with. I tried all kinds of things, but nothing was right. Then,
suddenly, I remembered my wings. It had been two years since I'd looked
at them. And after that long time, I found that I didn't care so much.
And so--and so--one day I got them out and cut them into little brooms
for the hearth. Honey never said anything about it--but I knew he knew.
Somehow--." A strange expression came into the face of the unanalytic
Lulu. "I always have a feeling that Honey enjoys using my wings about
the hearth."

Juli