n
anything to Mattie's mother? Well, for that matter, whether it would
or not, she had promised to make it and must keep her word. And she
mustn't allow her thoughts to be diverted by that.

For the opportunity she had sought to complete her plans was hers. Mr.
Middleton had gone out to attend a committee meeting directly after
dinner. Mrs. Middleton she hadn't seen all day. The matter of the
library had settled itself, and her way was clear.

But somehow her thoughts didn't proceed as she had expected them to do.
She had rather looked for marshalled ranks of reasons standing at
either hand--those saying _go_, of course, largely predominating--which
she would only have to review. Instead her mind wandered, roving back
to the conversation with Mattie, and the little girl's quoting her
mother that every one has a hard to bear.

Was it really true? She supposed it must be. Mr. Middleton, despite
his serenity, looked as if he had undergone all sorts of things. So
had Elsie Moss. Even poor old Kate had had her share. On the other
hand, there was Mrs. Middleton, there was Elsie's own grandmother and
her mother. And there was Elsie herself. She had never had anything
hard in her life until within a fortnight.

How curious it was that Mattie should have put her finger upon Mrs.
Middleton as being her particular difficulty, mistaken though her sense
of the situation was. Mrs. Middleton was truly the only _hard_ Elsie
had ever known. Undergoing a certain amount of her society and
submitting to her caresses, sometimes once a day, often less
frequently, was the only ordeal she had ever undergone. And severe
though it was, there were wide spaces between, and those spaces were
the happiest moments she had ever known.

Now she was planning to throw away all the happiness, the delight,
because of the discomfort. It came to her rather vaguely that perhaps
that was the way with people who seemed never to have had hardships.
They evaded them somehow. And she wondered if some one else had to
shoulder them as so much extra burden? It almost seemed so.

And yet, why should she remain and endure that dreadful Mrs. Middleton?
What good would it do? Mightn't it, on the contrary, do real harm?
The girl couldn't imagine it as being any easier as the days went by,
but in case it should, what would it mean but that she herself was
becoming coarse--even vulgar?

In a sense, there wasn't any one now to care whether she was