“I don’t believe she’s mean—­anyway, I know she isn’t.  I believe she doesn’t have half enough to eat and these sweets make up for it!  Or else—­she likes sweets frightfully and doesn’t want me to know she’s so—­so kiddish.”

Quick tears had sprung into Marcella’s eyes, tears of pity and of impotence as she wondered what on earth she could do for Aunt Janet.  After a while, when she was quite sure the acid drop was swallowed, and no other had taken its place, she knelt down on the hearth and, after a minute, shyly drew herself over to her aunt’s side.

“Aunt Janet,” she said, taking one of the thin blue-veined hands in hers, “Auntie—­”

“What is it, Marcella?”

“I—­I don’t know.  Oh, Aunt Janet, I do wish there was something I could do for you.”

“Marcella!” cried her aunt, almost shocked.

“Oh dear, you make me cry, Aunt Janet, to see you sitting here so lonely and so still.  You seem like father—­there’s a wall all round you that I can’t get inside.  Oh and I do love you!  I’m simply miserable because I want to do something nice for you.”

She stared at her aunt with swimming eyes, and Aunt Janet, quite at a loss to understand the outbreak, could not get outside her wall.

“You will find it’s much better to rule love out, Marcella,” said Aunt Janet gently, holding the girl’s hand in hers, which was cold.  “It is better not to pity anyone or love anyone.  Oh yes, I know you pity me, child.  But love and pity have exactly doubled the pain of the world, because, in addition to the tragedy of the person you love is your own tragic desire to do something for them.  You take my advice, Marcella—­don’t love.  Rule love out—­”

“Oh my goodness—­acid drops,” whispered Marcella to herself as she sat down to think out this astonishing heresy.

From that day she had been filled with a choked pity for Aunt Janet—­and now, suddenly, as she sat with the jam spoon full, poised over her plate she saw herself getting like that—­slyly eating acid drops because she was ashamed to admit so small, so amiable a weakness, having conquered all the big ones.

She dropped the spoon with a clatter and pushed the pot away from her.

“Acid drops,” she whispered to herself.

“You may as well eat it up, Marcella.  It only means you won’t have any to-morrow.  Neither Jean nor I want it—­and the pot can be washed and put away then.”

“No—­no.  I don’t want it,” cried the girl passionately.  “Aunt Janet, I want to go away.”

Her eyes were sparkling, her breath coming fast and short.

“Go away?”

“Yes.  I can’t stay here.  What’s to happen to me if I do?  Oh what’s to happen to me?”

“You’ll be happier staying here till you drop out of life,” said the woman, looking at her intently.

“Oh no—­no!  I’d rather be smashed up and killed—­like grandfather was,” cried Marcella passionately.