She said to herself, with her harsh, unsparing honesty, that it must be a “hitch inside;” a cramp or an awkwardness born in her, that set her eyes, peering and sharp, so near together, and put that knot into her brows instead of their widening placidly, like Rosamond’s, and made her jerky in her speech.  It was no use; she couldn’t look and behave, because she couldn’t be; she must just go boggling and kinking on, and—­losing everything, she supposed.

The smiles went down, under a swift, bitter little cloud, and the hard twist came into her face with the inward pinching she was giving herself; and all at once there crackled out one of her sharp, strange questions; for it was true that she could not do otherwise; everything was sudden and crepitant with her.

“Why need all the good be done up in batches, I wonder?  Why can’t it be spread round, a little more even?  There must have been a good deal left out somewhere, to make it come in a heap, so, upon you, Miss Craydocke!”

Hazel looked up.

“I know what Desire means,” she said.  “It seemed just so to me, one way.  Why oughtn’t there to be little homes, done-by-hand homes, for all these little children, instead of—­well—­machining them all up together?”

And Hazel laughed at her own conceit.

“It’s nice; but then—­it isn’t just the way.  If we were all brought up like that we shouldn’t know, you see!”

“You wouldn’t want to be brought up in a platoon, Hazel?” said Kenneth Kincaid.  “No; neither should I.”

“I think it was better,” said Hazel, “to have my turn of being a little child, all to myself; the little child, I mean, with the rest of the folks bigger.  To make much of me, you know.  I shouldn’t want to have missed that.  I shouldn’t like to be loved in a platoon.”

“Nobody is meant to be,” said Miss Craydocke.

“Then why—­” began Asenath Scherman, and stopped.

“Why what, dear?”

“Revelations,” replied Sin, laconically.  “There are loads of people there, all dressed alike, you know; and—­well—­it’s platoony, I think, rather!  And down here, such a world-full; and the sky—­full of worlds.  There doesn’t seem to be much notion of one at a time, in the general plan of things.”

“Ah, but we’ve got the key to all that,” said Miss Craydocke. “’The very hairs of your head are all numbered.’  It may be impossible with us, you know, but not with Him.”

“Miss Hapsie! you always did put me down, just when I thought I was smart,” said Sin Scherman.

Asenath loved to say “Miss Hapsie,” now and then, to her friend, ever since she had found out what she called her “squee little name.”

“But the little children, Miss Craydocke,” said Mrs. Ripwinkley.  “It seems to me Desire has got a right thought about it.”