she lay with her face on her arm. She was shaking from head to foot as
though with sobs. But she was not crying. She was laughing hysterically.
"Even for the pig!" she was saying to herself. "A symbol of my life!"

She lay there a long time after this nervous fit of laughter had
stopped, till she heard Paul saying, "There, I've put it on every inch
of him." He added with a special intonation, "And now I guess maybe I'd
better go in swimming."

At this Marise sat up quickly, with an instant experienced divination of
what she would see.

In answer to her appalled look on him, he murmured apologetically, "I
didn't know I was getting so _much_ on me. It sort of spattered."

* * * * *

It was, of course, as she led the deplorable object towards the house
that they encountered Eugenia under a green-lined white parasol, on the
way back from the garden, carrying an armful of sweet-peas.

"I thought I'd fill the vases with fresh flowers before the rain came,"
she murmured, visibly sheering off from Paul.

"Eugenia ought not to carry sweet-peas," thought Marise. "It ought
always to be orchids."

In the bath-room as she and Paul took off his oil-soaked clothes, Mark's
little voice called to her, "Mother! Mo-o-other!"

"Yes, what is it?" she answered, suspending operations for a moment to
hear.

"Mother, if I had to kill all the ants in the world," called Mark, "I'd
a great deal rather they were all gathered up together in a heap than
running around every-which-way, wouldn't you?"

"For goodness' _sakes,_ what a silly baby thing to say!" commented Paul
with energy.

Marise called heartily to Mark, "Yes indeed I would, dear."

Paul asked curiously, "Mother, how can you answer him like that, such a
_fool_ thing!"

Marise felt another wave of hysterical laughter mounting, at the idea of
the difficulty in perceiving the difference in degree of flatness
between Mark's remarks and those of Paul.

But it suddenly occurred to her that this was the time for Elly's hour
at the piano, and she heard no sound. She hastily laid out the clean
clothes for Paul, saw him started on the scrub in the bath-tub, and ran
downstairs to see if she could find Elly, before the storm broke,
turning over in her mind Elly's favorite nooks.

* * * * *

The air was as heavy as noxious gas in the breathless pause before the
arrival of the rain.

In the darkened, shaded hall stood