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the house. There was food upon the table, hot and delicious, ready, waiting to be eaten. She was suddenly very hungry.
    On weekdays the house became itself again. It no longer belonged to the red brick church and to the village—it belonged to them. It was theirs to live in as they chose and each of them lived his own intense life, intensely alone and yet always warmly, intensely together. There were the occasions of every day when they were drawn together by a need of each other, not so much by the need of any one of them as by the need of all of them together.
    In the mornings Joan drowsed in the sweetness of half-waking sleep. Her body was at once heavy and light, her mind deeply slumberous, and yet on its surface awake to the sunshine, to the angles of familiar furniture, to the smoothness of the sheets against her limbs and to the softness beneath her. There was no need to rise. There was no urgency yet to work. Life was still waiting and still holiday. Each morning her body was appeased with sleep and she was not immediately hungry. She could sleep as long as she liked, she told herself, and eat when she liked. This was her home and she was free in it. She smiled, deeply free, deeply happy, and turned upon her pillows to sleep again.
    But then her sleep would not come. Perversely her mind crept out of her languorous body. It crept downstairs and saw the others at the table together. Her place was empty. Her father hesitated before grace, as he always did if one of them were not there. He asked, “Where is Joan? Is she ill?”
    “Let the child rest,” her mother answered comfortably. “This is her vacation—let her be.”
    So they went on without her. But they missed her and she knew they did. The meal was not complete. They were not wholly fed unless they took their meal together. Her mind came creeping upstairs and into her body again. It urged her body lying inert, her eyes closed. She found herself thinking, I miss them, too. I’d rather have breakfast with them than all alone. I want to be in my place among them.
    Suddenly she leaped up, wide awake, and dashed off her nightgown and darted under the shower in the bathroom. She turned it on full, a cold stinging rain against her. She whirled around and received it upon her breasts and let it rush to her feet; and turned and caught it upon her shoulders and down to her heels. She wrestled an instant with the thick towel, passing it this way and that over her body. She drew her garments over her head and buttoned the few buttons, quickly and slipped into her stockings and shoes and brushed the length of her hair out and twisted it. She ran to the table laughing, the tendrils of her hair still wet.
    They looked at her joyously. “I thought you were going to sleep this morning!” her mother cried gaily.
    “I didn’t want to miss anything,” she answered. “I suddenly felt I was missing something.”
    “You sure would have missed these muffins,” Francis shouted. “I’m seeing to it you miss as many of ’em as I can manage.” He reached for a hot one as Hannah passed them, smiling and flattered.
    They were all cheerful with her coming. Each one began speaking for himself and of his own thoughts except the mother, who must listen to them all. But each had needed the circle complete before which to speak. Her father ate with appetite today, pondering on the day before. He looked up in the midst of the chatter to ask his wife, troubled at a thought, “Mary, did you think there were as many out as usual yesterday?”
    She answered him at once, although her eyes were still merry among her children. “Yes, I did, Paul—considering the time of the year. People like to take trips and picnics in weather like this.”
    But he was not wholly comforted. He murmured, “The church members ought to remember their duty. The service ought to be necessary to them—as necessary for their souls as food for their bodies.”
    “Oh, but, Father,” Joan broke in.