The arpeggio accompaniment began murmuring, “But the Powers children.  Nelly and ’Gene can’t afford fifty cents a pound for beefsteak.  Perhaps part of their little Ralph’s queerness and abnormality comes from lack of proper food.  And those white-cheeked little Putnam children in the valley.  They probably don’t taste meat, except pork, more than once a week.”  She protested sharply, “But if their father won’t work steadily, when there is always work to be had?” And heard the murmuring answer, “Why should the children suffer because of something they can’t change?”

She drew a long breath, brushed all this away with an effort, asking herself defiantly, “Oh, what has all this to do with us?” And was aware of the answer, “It has everything to do with us, only I can’t figure it out.”

Impatiently she proposed to herself, “But while I’m trying to figure it out, wouldn’t I better just go ahead and have beefsteak today?” and wearily, “Yes, of course, we’ll have beefsteak as usual.  That’s the way I always decide things.”

She buttered a piece of toast and began to eat it, thinking, “I’m a lovely specimen, anyhow, of a clear-headed, thoughtful modern woman, muddling along as I do.”

The clock struck the half-hour.  Paul rose as though the sound had lifted him bodily from his seat.  Elly did not hear, her eyes fixed dreamily on her kitten, stroking its rounded head, lost in the sensation of the softness of the fur.

Her mother put out a reluctant hand and touched her quietly.  “Come, dear Elly, about time to start to school.”

As she leaned across the table, stretching her neck towards the child, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the other side of the room, and thought, “Oh, how awful!  I begin to look as Cousin Hetty does, with that scrawny neck. . . .”

She repulsed the thought vigorously.  “Well, what does it matter if I do?  There’s nothing in my life, any more, that depends on my looking young.”

At this thought, something perfectly inchoate, which she did not recognize, began clawing at her.  She pushed it off, scornfully, and turned to Elly, who got up from the table and began collecting her books into her school-bag.  Her face was rosy and calm with the sweet ineffable confidence of a good child who has only good intentions.  As she packed her books together, she said, “Well, I’m ready.  I’ve done my grammar, indefinite pronouns, and I can say all those river-tributaries backwards.  So now I can start.  Good-bye, Mother dear.”  Marise bent to kiss the shining little face.  “Good-bye, Elly.”

To herself she thought, as her face was close to the child’s, “I wonder if I look to my little girl as Cousin Hetty used to look to me?” and startled and shocked that the idea kept recurring to her, assuming an importance she was not willing to give it, she cried out to herself, “Oh, stop being so paltry about that!”

Aloud she said, “Don’t forget to put your rubbers on.  Have you a clean handkerchief?  Oh, Elly, look at your nails!  Here, hand me the nail-file over there, Paul.  I’ll clean them more quickly than you, dear.”