Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/69

Rh blindly. She wished she could feel the pressure of a specific ambition, like Cousin Pattie; or the driving incentive of some visible goal. What she was hungry for, what she desired was of such intangible quality! Steam-power and electric, even one's two feet, could bring Cousin Pattie nearer to lavender Austria, green Italy or lemon-colored China, but there were no railroads—no tickets issued—for the regions Reba would explore. With large sums of money, and extensive additions made of redbrick and white mortar, Reba's grandfather could realize his great desire, but Reba's was not to be bought, or lured by ambitious quarters. It was hardly to be put into words. She couldn't have told herself what the thing was which she desired.

If only Cousin Pattie hadn't gone to San Domingo, she might have joined her. If only she were not quite so old, she might apply at a boarding-school and assume the rôle of a young girl. If only—if only Thus her meditations always began, and might have continued to begin, ad infinitum, if Cousin Pattie's postcard hadn't arrived, mailed from a port Reba had never heard of. It had only three words on it, but they were written clearly, underlined blackly, and enclosed by quotation marks. "In spite of," were the words. Reba flushed at sight of them.

A few days later, when there blew onto the floor in the very path of her broom, when she was sweeping her father's "study," a small paper folder, the spirit of Cousin Pattie's postcard message was burned deep into her heart. It was a folder from an organization to which her father had for many years sent small contributions.

Reba was familiar with its name. The Women's