ble excuse for my existence. The world wouldn't lose anything if it lost me. No one would lose anything. I'm necessary to nobody's happiness like Myrtle or Maude; I'm of service to no institution like Adelaide; of value to no cause like Bert and Harry; I'm of promise to nothing in the way of art or beauty like Christine."
Every act in the lives of Myrtle and her brothers and sisters, it occurred to Constance, the tiniest and homeliest, was one more thread worked into their lives' patterns, which some day they could lay out before them and contemplate. In her life, every act was one more senseless snarl in a horrible conglomeration of false starts, dropped fads, dead interests.
Her mother had once said of her (quietly, kindly, but truthfully after all) that she had been misnamed, "Unless," Mrs. Weatherby had smilingly added, "persistent changing from one hobby to another is a form of constancy."
Mr. and Mrs. Weatherby had believed in the elective system when it came to the pursuits their children followed after their educations were completed. The others had all had a goal in mind—but never Constance. Once relieved of a college curriculum and left free to follow her own inclinations, Constance's pursuits had been so many and varied that she had won the title of
