the guard of nurses carefully chosen for us by our parents, to drop our
simplicity. It must, of course, be so, or the world would be all
dreamers, and then there would be no commerce.

Barbara knew nothing of commerce, but she did know that she was
unhappy, that her dolls gave her no happiness, and that her Friend did
not come now so often to see her. She was, I am afraid, in character a
"Hopper." She must be affectionate, she must demand affection of others,
and will they not give it her, then must they simulate it. The tragedy
of it all was perhaps, that Barbara had not herself that coloured
vitality in her that would prepare other people to be fond of her. The
world is divided between those who place affection about, now here, now
there, and those whose souls lie, like drawers, unawares, but ready for
the affection to be laid there.

Barbara could not "place" it about; she had neither optimism nor a sense
of humour sufficient. But she wanted it--wanted it terribly. If she were
not to be allowed to indulge her imagination, then must she, all the
more, love some one with fervour: the two things were interdependent.
She surveyed her world with an eye to this possible loving. There was
her governess, who had been with her for a year now, tearful, bony,
using Barbara as a means and never as an end. Barbara did not love
her--how could she? Moreover, there were other physical things: the
lean, shining marble of Miss Letts's long fingers, the dry thinness of
her hair, the way that the tip of her nose would be suddenly red, and
then, like a blown-out candle, dull white again. Fingers and noses are
not the only agents in the human affections, but they have most
certainly something to do with them. Moreover, Miss Letts was too busily
engaged with the survey of her relations, with now this gentleman, now
that, to pay much attention to Barbara. She dismissed her as "a queer