's the _good_ of
all we do?"

Poor Lydia propounded this question as though it were the first time in
the world's history that it had passed the lips of humanity. Her
curious, puzzled distress rose up in a choking flood to her throat, and
she stopped, looking desperately at her sister.

Mrs. Mortimer nodded again, calmly, drew a long breath, and seemed about
to speak. Lydia gazed at her, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright with
unshed tears--all one eager expectancy. The older woman's eyes wandered
suddenly for an instant. She darted forward, clapped her hands together
once, and then in rapid succession three or four times. Then rolling
triumphantly something between her thumb and forefinger, she turned to
Lydia. The little operation had not taken the third of a moment, but the
change in the girl's face was so great that Mrs. Mortimer was moved to
hasty, half-shamefaced, half-defiant apology. "I _was_ listening to you,
Lydia! I _was_ listening! But it's just the time of year when they lay
their eggs, and I have to fight them. Last year my best furs and Ralph's
dress suit were perfectly _riddled_! You know we can't afford new."

Lydia rose in silence and began pinning on her hat. Her sister, for all
her vexation over the ending of the interview, could hardly repress a
smile of superior wisdom at the other's face of tragedy. "Don't go,
Lyddie, don't go!" She tried to put her arms around the flighty young
thing. "Oh, dear Lydia, cultivate your sense of humor! That's all that's
the matter with you. There's nothing else! Look here, dear, there _are_
moths as well as souls in the world. People have to be on the lookout
for them,--for everything, don't you see?"

"They look out for _moths_, all right," said Lydia in a low tone. She
submitted, except for this one speech, in a passive silence to her
sister's combination of petting and exhortation, moving quietly toward
the door, and stepping evenly forward down the walk.

She had gone down to the street, leaving Mrs. Mortimer still calling
remorseful apologies, practical suggestions, and laughing comments on
her "tragedy way of taking the world." At the gate, she paused, and then
came back, her face like a mask under the shadow of her hat.

Marietta stood waiting for her with a quizzical expression. Under her
appearance of lightly estimating Lydia's depression as superficial, she
had been sensible of a not unfamiliar qualm of doubt as to her own
manner of life, an uneasy h