“What in the world are you doing?”

“Just looking over some old Story Club yarns.  I wanted something to cheer and inebriate.  I’d studied until the world seemed azure.  So I came up here and dug these out of my trunk.  They are so drenched in tears and tragedy that they are excruciatingly funny.”

“I’m blue and discouraged myself,” said Stella, throwing herself on the couch.  “Nothing seems worthwhile.  My very thoughts are old.  I’ve thought them all before.  What is the use of living after all, Anne?”

“Honey, it’s just brain fag that makes us feel that way, and the weather.  A pouring rainy night like this, coming after a hard day’s grind, would squelch any one but a Mark Tapley.  You know it is worthwhile to live.”

“Oh, I suppose so.  But I can’t prove it to myself just now.”

“Just think of all the great and noble souls who have lived and worked in the world,” said Anne dreamily.  “Isn’t it worthwhile to come after them and inherit what they won and taught?  Isn’t it worthwhile to think we can share their inspiration?  And then, all the great souls that will come in the future?  Isn’t it worthwhile to work a little and prepare the way for them—­make just one step in their path easier?”

“Oh, my mind agrees with you, Anne.  But my soul remains doleful and uninspired.  I’m always grubby and dingy on rainy nights.”

“Some nights I like the rain—­I like to lie in bed and hear it pattering on the roof and drifting through the pines.”

“I like it when it stays on the roof,” said Stella.  “It doesn’t always.  I spent a gruesome night in an old country farmhouse last summer.  The roof leaked and the rain came pattering down on my bed.  There was no poetry in that.  I had to get up in the ‘mirk midnight’ and chivy round to pull the bedstead out of the drip—­and it was one of those solid, old-fashioned beds that weigh a ton—­more or less.  And then that drip-drop, drip-drop kept up all night until my nerves just went to pieces.  You’ve no idea what an eerie noise a great drop of rain falling with a mushy thud on a bare floor makes in the night.  It sounds like ghostly footsteps and all that sort of thing.  What are you laughing over, Anne?”

“These stories.  As Phil would say they are killing—­in more senses than one, for everybody died in them.  What dazzlingly lovely heroines we had—­and how we dressed them!

“Silks—­satins—­velvets—­jewels—­laces—­they never wore anything else.  Here is one of Jane Andrews’ stories depicting her heroine as sleeping in a beautiful white satin nightdress trimmed with seed pearls.”

“Go on,” said Stella.  “I begin to feel that life is worth living as long as there’s a laugh in it.”

“Here’s one I wrote.  My heroine is disporting herself at a ball ‘glittering from head to foot with large diamonds of the first water.’  But what booted beauty or rich attire?  ’The paths of glory lead but to the grave.’  They must either be murdered or die of a broken heart.  There was no escape for them.”