tened glance at her stony face.
Thea went slowly up the back stairs to her loft. Her legs seemed as
heavy as lead as she climbed the stairs, and she felt as if everything
inside her had solidified and grown hard.

After shutting her door and locking it, she sat down on the edge of her
bed. This place had always been her refuge, but there was a hostility in
the house now which this door could not shut out. This would be her last
summer in that room. Its services were over; its time was done. She rose
and put her hand on the low ceiling. Two tears ran down her cheeks, as
if they came from ice that melted slowly. She was not ready to leave her
little shell. She was being pulled out too soon. She would never be able
to think anywhere else as well as here. She would never sleep so well or
have such dreams in any other bed; even last night, such sweet,
breathless dreams--Thea hid her face in the pillow. Wherever she went
she would like to take that little bed with her. When she went away from
it for good, she would leave something that she could never recover;
memories of pleasant excitement, of happy adventures in her mind; of
warm sleep on howling winter nights, and joyous awakenings on summer
mornings. There were certain dreams that might refuse to come to her at
all except in a little morning cave, facing the sun--where they came to
her so powerfully, where they beat a triumph in her!

The room was hot as an oven. The sun was beating fiercely on the
shingles behind the board ceiling. She undressed, and before she threw
herself upon her bed in her chemise, she frowned at herself for a long
while in her looking-glass. Yes, she and It must fight it out together.
The thing that looked at her out of her own eyes was the only friend she
could count on. Oh, she would make these people sorry enough! There
would come a time when they would want to make it up with her. But,
never again! She had no little vanities, only one big one, and she would
never forgive.

Her mother was all right, but her mother was a part of the family, and
she was not. In the nature of things, her mother had to be on both
sides. Thea felt that she had been betrayed. A truce had been broken
behind her back. She had never had much individual affection for any of
her brothers except Thor, but she had never been disloyal, never felt
scorn or held grudges. As a little girl she had always been good friends
with Gunner and Axel, whenever she had time to play. Ev