"I was wondering only this morning," he began, and stopped.

She was too intent upon her own thoughts to notice this
insufficiency. "I find myself in life, and it terrifies me. I
seem to be like a little speck, whirling on a wheel, suddenly
caught up. 'What am I here for?' I ask. Simply to be here at a
time--I asked it a week ago, I asked it yesterday, and I ask it
to-day. And little things happen and the days pass. My stepmother
takes me shopping, people come to tea, there is a new play to
pass the time, or a concert, or a novel. The wheels of the world
go on turning, turning. It is horrible. I want to do a miracle
like Joshua and stop the whirl until I have fought it out. At
home--It's impossible."

Mr. Hoopdriver stroked his moustache. "It IS so," he said in a
meditative tone. "Things WILL go on," he said. The faint breath
of summer stirred the trees, and a bunch of dandelion puff lifted
among the meadowsweet and struck and broke into a dozen separate
threads against his knee. They flew on apart, and sank, as the
breeze fell, among the grass: some to germinate, some to perish.
His eye followed them until they had vanished.

"I can't go back to Surbiton," said the Young Lady in Grey.

"EIGH?" said Mr. Hoopdriver, catching at his moustache. This was
an unexpected development.

"I want to write, you see," said the Young Lady in Grey, "to
write Books and alter things. To do Good. I want to lead a Free