garding it. "Your mother's a plain, natural person and never has
felt at home in that big house. Indeed, I don't think any human being
ever does feel at home in a big house. There was a time when they fitted
in with the order of things; but now they've become silly, it seems to
me, except for public purposes. When we all get sensible and go in for
being somebody instead of for showing off, we'll live in convenient,
comfortable, really tasteful and individual houses and have big buildings
only for general use."

"I'm afraid the world will never grow up into your ideals, Madelene,"
said Del with restrained irony. "At least not in our day."

"I'm in no hurry," replied Madelene good-naturedly. "The most
satisfactory thing about common sense is that one can act on it without
waiting for others to get round to it. But we weren't talking of those
who would rather be ignorantly envied than intelligently happy. We were
talking of your mother."

"Mother was content with her mode of life until you put these 'advanced'
ideas into her head."

"'Advanced' is hardly the word," said Madelene. "They used to be her
ideas--always have been, underneath. If it weren't that she is afraid of
hurting your feelings, she'd not hesitate an instant. She'd take the
small house across the way and give herself the happiness of helping with
the hospital she'd install in the big house. You know she always had a
passion for waiting on people. Here's her chance to gratify it to good
purpose. Why should she let the fact that she has money enough not to
have to work stand between her and happy usefulness?"

"What does Arthur think?" asked Del. Her resentment was subsiding in
spite of her determined efforts to keep it glowing; Madelene knew the
secret of manner that enables one to be habitually right without giving
others the sense of being put irritatingly in the wrong. "But," smiling,
"I needn't inquire. Of course he assents to whatever _you_ say."

"You know Arthur better than that," replied Madelene, with no trace of
resentment. She had realized from the beginning of the conversation that
Del's nerves were on edge; her color, alternately rising and fading, and
her eyes, now sparkling now dull, could only mean fever from a tempest of
secret emotion. "He and I usually agree simply because we see things in
about the same light."

"You furnish the light," teased Adelaide.

"That was in part so at first," admitted her sister-in-law. "Arthur had
got