nd those who could well be spared clung to mortal
existence as though they had drunk deeply of the fabled fountain of
immortal youth.

Descending to personalities, Rosemary reflected upon the ironical Fate
that had taken her father and mother away from her, and spared
Grandmother and Aunt Matilda. Or, if she could have gone with her father
and mother, it would have been all right--Rosemary had no deep longing
for life considered simply as existence. Bitterness and the passion of
revolt swayed her for the moment, though she knew that the mood would
pass, as it always did, when she took her soul into the sanctuary of
the hills.

[Sidenote: A Mystery]

Dispassionately she observed her feet, stretched out in front of her,
and compared them with Mrs. Lee's. Rosemary's shoes were heavy and
coarse, they had low, broad heels and had been patched and mended until
the village cobbler had proclaimed himself at the end of his resources.
Once or twice she had said, half-fearfully, that she needed new shoes,
but Grandmother had not seemed to hear.

Father had meant for her to have everything she wanted--he had said so,
in the letter which at that moment lay against Rosemary's bitter young
heart. He would have given her a pair of slippers like those Mrs. Lee
had worn the day she went there to tea--black satin, with high heels and
thin soles, cunningly embroidered with tiny steel beads. How small and
soft the foot had seemed above the slipper; how subtly the flesh had
gleamed through the fine black silk stocking!

She wondered whether father knew. No, probably not, for if he did, he
would find some way to come and have it out with Grandmother--she was
sure of that. God knew, of course--God knew everything, but why had He
allowed Grandmother to do it? It was an inscrutable mystery to her that
a Being with infinite power should allow things to go wrong.

For the moment Rosemary's faith wavered, then re-asserted itself. It
was she who did not understand: the ways of the Everlasting were not her
ways, and, moreover, they were beyond her finite comprehension. If she
waited, and trusted, and meanwhile did the best she could, everything
would be right somewhere, sometime. That must be what Heaven was, a
place where things were always right for everybody.

[Sidenote: Startled]

Gradually her resentment passed away. The impassioned yearning for life,
in all its fulness, that once had shaken her to the depths of her soul,
had ceased to