She lost a husband and two brothers and a father and four nephews and an uncle in the war; and all her money; and her house had to be sold; and her baby died before its father saw it; and, of course, that makes a difference.  It makes a Yankee real personal.

But Miss Katherine don’t feel that way about Yankees.  Each of her brothers married one, and she don’t seem to mind.

Miss Katherine went to the ball, too.  She gave in, after all, and went.

I wish you could have seen her when she was dressed and all ready to go.  She had on a long, white satin dress, low neck and short sleeves, with little trimming and no jewelry.  And she looked so tall and beautiful, and so something I didn’t have a name for, that I was afraid, and my heart beat so thick and fast I thought she’d hear.

I hated it.  Hated that satin dress, and the places where she wore it when away from the Asylum; and I sat up in bed, for lying down it was hard to breathe.

Presently she turned from the fire where she had been standing, looking in, and came toward me and kissed me good-night.

In her face was something I had never seen before—­something so quiet and proud that I couldn’t sleep for a long time after she went away.

It wasn’t just the same as the remembrance look I had seen several times before, when she forgot she wasn’t by herself.  It was prouder than that, and it meant something that didn’t get better—­just worse.

What was it?  If it’s a man, who is he?  He must be living, for it isn’t the look that means something is dead.  It means something that won’t die, but is never, never going to be told.

XI

FINDING OUT

This world is a hard place to live in.  I wish somebody would tell me what we are born for anyway, and what’s the use of living.

There are so many things that hurt, and you get so mixed up trying to understand, that if you don’t keep busy you’ll spend your life guessing at a puzzle that hasn’t any answer.

Miss Katherine has gone away.  Gone to stay two months, anyhow.  Maybe three.

Her Army brother, the one who is a Captain, has been sent to Texas, and his wife and children were taken ill as soon as they got there.

Of course, they sent for Miss Katherine; that is, asked her by telegraph if she wouldn’t come.  She went.  And she’ll be going to somebody all her life, for she’s the kind that is turned to when things go wrong.

Miss Webb is awful worried.  She says a cool head and a warm heart are always worked to death, and the person who has them is forever on call.

Miss Katherine has them.

She had to go, of course.  We were not sick, except a few snifflers.  We didn’t exactly need her, and her brother did; but oh the difference her being away makes!

Three months of doing without her is like three months of daylight and no sunlight.  It’s like things to eat that haven’t any taste; like a room in which the one you wait for never comes.