"There," I said to myself, when I put it under the pillow. "Youlook like a photo, but you are really a bomb-shell."

As things eventuated, it was. More so, indeed.

Mother sent for me when I came in. She was sitting in front of hermirror, having the vibrater used on her hair, and her manner waschanged. I guessed that there had been a family Counsel over thepoem, and that they had decided to try kindness.

"Sit down, Barbara," she exclaimed. "I hope you were not lonely last evening?"

"I am never lonely, mother. I always have things to think about."

I exclaimed this in a fairly pathetic tone.

"What sort of things?" mother asked, rather sharply.

"0h--things," I said vaguely. "Life is such a mess, isn't it?"

"Certainly not. Unless one makes it so."

"But it is so difficult. Things come up and--and it's hard toknow what to do. The only way, I suppose, is to be truthful to one'sbeleif in one's self."

"Take that thing off my head and go out, Hannah," mother snapped."Now then, Barbara, what in the world has come over you?"

"0ver me? Nothing."

"You are being a silly kid."

"I am no longer a child, mother. I am seventeen. And at seventeenthere are problems. After all, one's life is one's own. 0ne mustdecide----"