f comfort in being of some use."

After which self-inflicted homily Mary had set to work and followed
her own advice. She had discovered very shortly that there were many
things to enjoy and be thankful for.

As soon as she was able Mary had refurnished her father's study and
taken it for her own. Here she made out household bills, lectured
Luke, planned work, sewed, and read. It was a shabby, cheery room with
a faded old carpet, an open fireplace, some easy-chairs, and a
black-walnut secretary over which her father had dreamed his dreams.
On the walls were stereotyped engravings such as Cherry Ripe and The
Call to Arms, which Mrs. Faithful refused to part with; no one,
herself included, ever knowing just why.

Mary also took herself to task in the little study in as impersonal a
manner as a true father confessor. "You are twenty-six and growing
set in your ways," she would mentally accuse--"always wanting a
certain table at the cafe and a certain waitress. Old Maid! Must
have your little French book to read away at as you munch your
rolls and refuse to be sociable. Hermitess! And always buy chocolates
and a London _News_ on Saturday night. Getting so you fuss if you
have square-topped hairpins instead of round, and letting milliners
sell you any sort of hats because you are too busy to prink! Going to
art galleries and concerts alone--and quite satisfied to do so. Now,
please, Mary, try not to be so queer and horrid!" Followed by a
one-sided debate as to whether or not these were normal symptoms of
maturity, and if she were mistress of a house would she not entertain
equally set notions regarding brands of soap, and so on?

"Office notions are not so nice as the frilly,
cry-on-a-shoulder-when-the-biscuits-burn notions," she would end,
dolefully. "Fancy my tall self weeping on the superintendent's
shoulder because a cablegram has gone astray! Making women over into
commercial nuns is a problem--some of us take it easily and don't try
to fight back, some of us fight and end defeated and bitter, and some
of us don't play the game but just our own hand--like Trudy. And
what's the square game for a commercial nun? That is what I'd like to
know."

She would then find herself dreaming of two distinct forks in the
road, both of which might be possible for her but only one of which
was probable. Each fork led to a feminine rainbow ending.

The more probable fork would resolve itself, a few years hence,
into a trim subur