Della Wetherby shook her head.
"Yes, you do, dear. You know I'm entirely out of sympathy with it all: the gloom, the lack of aim, the insistence on misery and bitterness."
"But I am miserable and bitter."
"You ought not to be."
"Why not? What have I to make me otherwise?"
Della Wetherby gave an impatient gesture.
"Ruth, look here," she challenged. "You're thirty-three years old. You have good health—or would have, if you treated yourself properly—and you certainly have an abundance of time and a superabundance of money. Surely anybody would say you ought to find something to do this glorious morning besides sitting moped up in this tomb-like house with instructions to the maid that you'll see no one."
"But I don't want to see anybody."
"Then I'd make myself want to."
Mrs. Carew sighed wearily and turned away her head.
"Oh, Della, why won't you ever understand? I'm not like you. I can't—forget."
A swift pain crossed the younger woman's face.
"You mean—Jamie, I suppose. I don't forget—that, dear. I couldn't, of course. But moping won't help us—find him."
"As if I hadn't tried to find him, for eight long years—and by something besides moping," flashed Mrs. Carew, indignantly, with a sob in her voice.
"Of course you have, dear," soothed the other, quickly; "and we shall keep on hunting, both of us,
