bear proudly, I wonder that any one of us dares to look in the
mirror.

"It's the eternal woman-hunger for love that makes us what we are,
compels us to endure what we do, and keeps us all door-mats with
'Welcome' printed on us in red letters. Eagerly trustful, we keep on
buying tickets to the circus, and never discover until we're old and
grey, that it's always exactly the same entertainment, and we're
admitted to it, each time, by a different door.

"Sometimes we see the caged wild animals first, and again, we arrive at
the pink-lemonade stand; or, up at the other end, where the trapezes
are, or in the middle, opposite the tank. Sometimes the band plays and
sometimes it doesn't, but all you need in order to be thoroughly
disillusioned is to stay to the concert, which bears about the same
relation to the circus that marriage does to your anticipations."

"Are you afraid," laughed Madame, "that you'll buy another ticket?"

"No, but I'll find it, or somebody will give me a pass. I'm too young to
stay to the concert and there's more of life coming to me still. I only
hope and pray that I'll manage to keep my head and not make the fatal,
heart-breaking mistake of the women who go over the precipice, waving
defiance at the social law that bids them stay with the herd."

[Sidenote: Mixed Metaphors]

"Your metaphors are mixed," Madame commented. "Concerts and circuses,
and herds, and precipices and door-mats. I feel as though you had
presented me with a jig-saw puzzle."

"So I have. Is my life anything more than that? I don't even know that
all the pieces are there. If they would only print the picture on the
cover of the box, or tell us how many pieces there are, and give us more
than one or two at a time, and eternity to solve it in, we'd stand some
chance, perhaps."

"More mixed metaphors," Madame said, rolling up the mended stockings.

A maid came into the dining-room and began to set the table for
luncheon. Edith rose from her chair and came to Madame. The dark hollows
under her eyes were evident now and all the youth was gone from her face
and figure.

"Well," she said, in a low tone, "what am I to do?"

It was some little time before Madame answered. "I do not know. These
modern times are too confused for me. The old way would have been to
wait, to do the best one could, and trust God to make it right in His
own good time."

[Sidenote: Invited to Stay]

Edith shook her head. "I've waited and I've done