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overlarge, overweight, overdressed, rosy, empty-eyed, and grinning. This was a lower-middle-class neighborhood; the children looked like the offspring of millionaires, due to the stupid self-sacrifice and vanity of hardworking parents. When they were older, and the great hard world of reality impinged upon them, they would bawl like bewildered and angry calves, demanding of their neighbors and government the same benefits and indulgences they had enjoyed in their schools and homes. To the ruin of America.
    Alice was young and strong, and not much older than the bigger boys and girls, and she elbowed a youth and his girl out of the way in the race to the one empty booth. They scowled at her. She sat down and put her books and papers on the table, and looked formidably at the two who hovered indignantly close by. Her stare intimidated them; grumbling and sulky, they moved away, muttering about “teachers.” She ordered coffee and two doughnuts, and leaned her weary cheek on her hand as she waited. She closed her gritty eyes and tried not to hear the din in the store.
    A man’s voice said in surprise and pleasure, “Why, hello, Allie!” She started and looked up, to see Mark Saint, with his briefcase, standing beside her table. He stood there, tall and thin and vibrant, his dark skin flushed with cold, his crisp dark hair sprinkled with snow. Alice’s heart rose on a painful yet joyous surge. She had not seen her brother-in-law since last August, eight months ago. She could not speak; she could only smile. He sat down opposite her, and looked at her with affection.
    “Just dropped in for a prescription, and there you were,” he said. “How are you, Allie?”
    “Fine, Mark.” The uproar in the drugstore faded from Alice’s consciousness. A fine trembling ran over her flesh. The girl came with the coffee and doughnuts, and Mark ordered coffee for himself. Mark said, in a low voice of solicitude, “You look tired, Allie. Anything wrong?”
    “No. It’s just school,” said Alice. An uncomfortable color began to rise in her pale cheeks. “How—how is Kathy? And Angelo?”
    “Fine.” A closed expression appeared on his face as he bent his head and stirred his coffee. “Why haven’t you been around, Allie? We didn’t even see you at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Kathy told me your friend, the other teacher, had asked you to spend the holidays with her and her parents in Boston. But you could have come in at other times. After all, we’re the only family you have.”
    He lifted his head suddenly and regarded her with his piercing hazel eyes. Alice hastily glanced away. “I’ll come in soon,” she murmured. “It’s just I’ve been so busy.”
    Mark was silent. It was Elsie, on the eve of her leaving the Saint household, who had come to him to tell him candidly that Kathy had called Alice, after that wild day in August, and had hysterically accused her of many crimes, among them of hating her child, plotting jealously against her child, abusing her child, and attempting to create dissension between husband and wife. Kathy had then forbidden her home to her sister in the future. “I never want to see you again!” she had screamed. “There’s always strain and trouble after you’ve been here, and my nerves are too delicate, and Angel is too sensitive for such things!”
    Alice was also thinking, now, of that telephone call. She was not aware that Mark knew of it. Then at Thanksgiving, and then again at Christmas, Kathy had written her gushing and complaining notes, accusing her of neglect, and inviting her as usual for the holidays. Her lack of sensitivity had appalled Alice, who had made polite excuses. But it was Kathy who spoke constantly to Mark of Alice’s coldness and lack of affection for her “family.” Was she impervious, and incapable of empathy and understanding, or had her call to Alice been merely a hysterical reaction to the events of that August day? Mark often asked himself, as did Alice