CHAPTER VII

HOW THE PATTERN WAS CUT

Through the two weeks that intervened before Portia and her mother left

for the West, Rose disregarded the physical wretchedness--which went on

getting worse instead of better--and dismissed her psychical worries

until she should have time to attend to them. She helped Portia pack,

she presented a steady cheerful radiance of optimism to her mother, that

never faltered until the last farewells were said.

Just how she'd take up the fight again for the great thing Portia had

adjured her not to miss, she didn't know. She supposed she'd go back to

her law-books--at any rate until she could work out something better.

But the pattern, it seemed, was cut differently. She went to the

doctor's office the day after Portia took her mother away, and

discovered the cause of her physical wretchedness. She was pregnant.