lift men--she knew not where. This cry in Beth's heart was often heard
after that--to be great, to do something for others. She was growing
weary of the narrow boundaries of self. She would do good, but she knew
not how. She heard a hungry world crying at her feet, but she had not
the bread they craved. Poor, blinded bird, beating against the bars of
heaven! Clarence never seemed to understand her in those moods: he had
no sympathy with them. Alas, he had never known Beth Woodburn; he had
understood her intellectual nature, but he had never sounded the depths
of her womanly soul. He did not know she had a heart large enough to
embrace the whole world, when once it was opened. Poor, weak, blinded
Clarence! She was as much stronger than he, as the star is greater than
the moth that flutters towards it.




CHAPTER VII.

_ENDED._


June was almost over, and Beth had been home a full month on that long
four months' vacation that university students are privileged to enjoy.
She was very ambitious when she came home that first vacation. She had
conceived a fresh ideal of womanhood, a woman not only brilliantly
educated and accomplished, but also a gentle queen of the home, one who
thoroughly understood the work of her home. Clarence was quite pleased
when she began to extol cooking as an art, and Dr. Woodburn looked
through the open kitchen-door with a smile at his daughter hidden behind
a clean white apron and absorbed in the mysteries of the pastry board.