ove. And she did not ask what the gossip
was. Half way up Palmer Lane she turned in at the cement path between
borders of early perennials which led to the white Wheeler house. She
was flushed and angry, hating Clare for her unsolicited confidence and
her malice, hating even Haverly, that smiling, tree-shaded suburb which
"talked."

She opened the door quietly and went in. Micky, the Irish terrier, lay
asleep at the foot of the stairs, and her father's voice, reading aloud,
came pleasantly from the living room. Suddenly her sense of resentment
died. With the closing of the front door the peace of the house
enveloped her. What did it matter if, beyond that door, there were
unrequited love and petty gossip, and even tragedy? Not that she put all
that into conscious thought; she had merely a sensation of sanctuary
and peace. Here, within these four walls, were all that one should need,
love and security and quiet happiness. Walter Wheeler, pausing to turn a
page, heard her singing as she went up the stairs. In the moment of the
turning he too had a flash of content. Twenty-five years of married life
and all well; Nina married, Jim out of college, Elizabeth singing her
way up the stairs, and here by the lamp his wife quietly knitting while
he read to her. He was reading Paradise Lost: "The mind is its own
place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."

He did a certain amount of serious reading every year.

On Sunday mornings, during the service, Elizabeth earnestly tried to
banish all worldly thoughts. In spite of this resolve, however, she was
always conscious of a certain regret that the choir seats necessitated
turning her profile to the congregation. At the age of twelve she had
decided that her nose was too short, and nothing had happened since
to change her conviction. She seldom so much as glanced at the
congregation. During her slow progress up and down the main aisle behind
the Courtney boy, who was still a soprano and who carried the great gold
cross, she always looked straight ahead. Or rather, although she was
unconscious of this, slightly up. She always looked up when she sang,
for she had commenced to take singing lessons when the piano music rack
was high above her head.

So she still lifted her eyes as she went up the aisle, and was extremely
serious over the whole thing. Because it is a solemn matter to take a
number of people who have been up to that moment engrossed in thoughts
of