would make her unhappy. She takes everything so dreadfully hard;
she feels things more than other people do."

"Lewis," said the little, old, wrinkled, privileged great-aunt,
"think a little less of her feelings and a little more of your own,
or you'll make a mess of things."

Lewis Hall was too respectful to tell the old lady what
he thought of such selfish advice; he merely did not act
upon it. Instead, he went on giving a great deal of thought
to Athalia's "feelings." That was why he and she were climbing
the hill in the dewy silence of this August morning.
Athalia had "felt" that she wanted to see the view--though it
would have been better for her to have rested in the station,
Lewis thought;--("I ought to have coaxed her out of it,"
he reproached himself.) It certainly was a hard walk,
considering that it followed a broken night in the sleeping-car.
They had left the train at five o'clock in the morning,
and were sitting in the station awaiting the express
when Athalia had had this impulse to climb the hill.
"It looks pretty steep," Lewis objected; and she flung out
her hands with an impatient gesture.

"I love to climb!" she said. So here they were, almost at the top,
panting and toiling, Athalia's skirts wet with dew, and Lewis's face
drawn with fatigue.

"Look!" she said; "it's all open! We can sit down and see all over
the world!" She left the road, springing lightly through the fringing
bay and briers toward an open space on the hillside. "There is a gate