Which do you call the best, the most satisfying, the finest
prospect? But I know what you will say: the view from the
little knoll in front of Hilltop. For there, when you are tired
of looking far away, you can turn around and see the old school,
and the linden-trees, and the garden."

"Yes," she answered gravely, "that is really the view that
I love best. I would give up all the others rather than lose
that."



III


There was a softness in the November air that brought back
memories of summer, and a few belated daisies were blooming in
the old clearing, as Keene and I passed by the ruins of the
farm-house again, early on Sunday morning. He had been
talking ever since we started, pouring out his praise of
knowledge, wide, clear, universal knowledge, as the best of
life's joys, the greatest of life's achievements. The
practical life was a blind, dull routine. Most men were
toiling at tasks which they did not like, by rules which they
did not understand. They never looked beyond the edge of
their work. The philosophical life was a spider's web--filmy
threads of theory spun out of the inner consciousness--it touched
the world only at certain chosen points of attachment. There was
nothing firm, nothing substantial in it. You could look through
it like a veil and see the real world lying beyond. But the