and Maude, and possibly Bert and Harry, home from training camp for over Sunday, and Mother, and dear Dad.
Lately a visit to Myrtle Weston always sapped Constance dry of what little courage and good-cheer she possessed when she set forth. It didn't use to be so. When she and Myrtle were young girls together in those after-school days when they both had led aimless lives, simply beating time as it were, while they waited for the vital years between eighteen and twenty-five to divulge for them various secrets and surprises, there hadn't existed a more sympathetic or understanding friend than Myrtle—Myrtle Atkinson she was then—but since she had become Myrtle Weston, and especially since the arrival of her children (there were two of them now) she always managed to make Constance feel how insignificant her interests in life were compared to the importance of bearing and rearing the next generation. In fact she saw little justification for a woman's existence unless she was a wife and mother (and Constance was neither one), or possibly, grudgingly she conceded, unless she contributed something brilliant to the world in the way of art or science. But this was small comfort to Constance. She was the untalented member of her family.
