Claudia put the pages back in their envelope. On the hearth the fire burned low, and, slipping out of her chair, she sat upon the rug and held her hands out shiveringly to the red ashes slowly turning gray. The habit of childhood was upon her, and quiveringly she talked to herself:

"You shouldn't have asked him to come Christmas! But how could I have known? I only thought he would be lonely. He cares for so few people and with all his wisdom has so little understanding of many things in life. He is so intolerant of weakness and meanness, of sham and show and pretence and make-believe that—that that's why you like him, and you know it, Claudia Keith! You shouldn't have asked him. You didn't know—but you knew before he went away. And he is coming back." Slowly she got up. "No. He is not coming back. That is, not yet, he isn't. You are not sure. Are you glad?" In the mirror over the mantel she met her eyes unshrinkingly. "Yes, I am glad," she said, and her lips whitened. "I am glad, but I am not sure." In her eyes was strange appeal. "Vermont and Virginia! Could we be happy? We are so different—and yet— Perhaps in the spring. . . . The winter months are very long. Oh, Winthrop Laine!" She pressed her hands to her heart as if to still its sudden throbbing, then reached for his letter and kissed it. "I wonder if I am going to know what Lonely Land can mean!"

XXI

A VISIT FROM DOROTHEA

Dorothea settled herself more comfortably in her uncle's lap. "You certainly ought to be thankful you've never had it," she said. "It's worse than being a leper. I've never been a leper, but when you're that you can go out, the Bible says so, and people just pass you by on the other side and let you alone. With diphtheria they don't let you alone. Lepers are just outcasts, but diphtherias—what are people who have diphtheria?—well, whatever they are, they're cast in and nobody can see them except the nurses and the doctor and your mother and father. The doctor said father mustn't come in my room, as he had to go to his business, and father told him to go to the devil—I heard him. I just love the way father talks when he's mad. I couldn't have stood the long days if it hadn't been for you and father coming in every evening. They certainly do a lot of things when you're sick with contagiousness. Everything you eat out of and drink out of has to be boiled and stewed, and the things you spit in burned up, and the walls washed, and more foolishness!" Dorothea's eyes rolled and her voice was emphatic. "I don't believe in a lot of things, Uncle Winthrop. I wasn't really sick, and just had a teensy, weensy bit of pain in my throat; and if I'd known what they were going to do to me I'd have been one of those Science Christians and kept it to myself."

"But suppose you had given it to Channing?" Dorothea's uncle settled Dorothea more steadily on his lap. "The foolishness of wisdom is all some see of it, but if Channing had taken diphtheria from you—"

"I don't believe there was any diphtheria for him to take. If I'd been a poor person it would have been plain sore throat, and I'd had some peace. Timkins says his little girl was a heap sicker than I was, and her mother nursed her all the time, and she got well long before I did. Are we very rich, Uncle Winthrop?"

"You are not billionaires. Your father has been fortunate and made some money—"

"Is making money fortunate? Of course, I like nice things; but a whole lot of us children feel like"—Dorothea's arms waved as if to free herself from unseen strappings—"feel like Chinese children. Our feet aren't really bound, sure enough, but we can't do like we like. Sometimes I just want to run as fast as a racehorse, and holler as loud as the poor children do in the park. I hate regulations and proper things. If father were to lose his money, do you suppose we would have to have a special time for everything we do? Go to bed, and get up, and eat, and say lessons, and study lessons, and take lessons, and go out, and come in, and lie down in a dark room, and go again to drive or walk, and in between everything you do dress over again, and never, never run or climb trees or tear your clothes and have just plain fun? I love dirt. I do! I have to be so careful with my finger nails and my clothes that if ever I have children I am going to let them get right down in the dirt and roll in it and make all the noise they want. Mother says a loud voice is so inelegant. So is affectatiousness, I think, and I wasn't born with a soft voice. I just bawl at Channing sometimes. I do it on purpose. I'm like father. I get tired of being elegant. Haven't you any kind of candy anywhere, Uncle Winthrop? Mother said I could have a few pieces if it didn't have nuts in it."

Laine reached for a drawer in the book-piled table near which he sat. "If I had known I was to have the honor of a visit from you this afternoon I would have been better prepared for entertainment. I'm afraid this candy isn't very good. It's been here since your last visit, and—"