She wondered if anything more could possibly happen in her life — not that so much had, but everything seemed so airtight, all the seams sewn up. There was little space for anything new. Yes, the children would keep growing. Fay would become more accomplished at talking back, Sally at staying quiet, and Porter would have to be fitted for glasses. One day each of them would — she leapt ahead — marry and go off, but that would be their lives. A small round of clapping rose around her — Lilian joined in regardless of whom it was for. She thought of the white hall of the children’s hospital where she still went once a week to read to the children. They sat up in the middle of their beds, little statues, perplexed, waiting like small animals, looking on with resignation at a leg being bandaged or an arm pricked. They had yet to develop the outrage of an adult, or the bitterness, and their faces shone with the trust of those who believe life will turn out well.

Lilian watched the butterfly, straining toward it as if toward something which mattered to her. What was it? She felt all … padded. Everything in her life was soft. It was not an extravagant life, they did not overindulge. They ate simple food, slept on simple beds, were satisfied with a reading evening. But at bottom there was a cushion. Sometimes she felt ashamed of it. Earlier in the summer, going out to the Wiggins’ in Beverly Farms, she took the train and passed through North Station where the hobos were out along the tracks, black-toothed, sooty, wearing caps, some wrapped in blankets like cocoons, some sleeping, and wondered how it was she happened to be where she was and not there.

The ball thumped into the net. Gilbert did not show any signs of minding that they were losing. Cap, however, despite his Yankee reserve, was used to elections, and winning, and he stiffened his jaw and slammed his long-armed serves into the net. Their opponents remained steely, exchanging pinched nods. Now and then the father snapped an order at his son.

Lilian followed the butterfly, it was way off now, a pale speck making an uneven line, visible against the pine trees one moment, then disappearing against the white sky. She’d known things like that in her life, compelling, distracting things, they tantalized her, but finally were too delicate to hold. They disappeared in an instant. It had been a long time since she’d been bewitched by something that way. What a thought to have! I may be a thoughtful woman, but I’m not a dreamy one.