"And what do you call the fulness of life?" the Spirit asked
again.

"Oh, I can't tell you, if you don't know," she said, almost
reproachfully. "Many words are supposed to define it--love and
sympathy are those in commonest use, but I am not even sure that
they are the right ones, and so few people really know what they
mean."

"You were married," said the Spirit, "yet you did not find the
fulness of life in your marriage?"

"Oh, dear, no," she replied, with an indulgent scorn, "my
marriage was a very incomplete affair."

"And yet you were fond of your husband?"

"You have hit upon the exact word; I was fond of him, yes, just
as I was fond of my grandmother, and the house that I was born
in, and my old nurse. Oh, I was fond of him, and we were counted
a very happy couple. But I have sometimes thought that a woman's
nature is like a great house full of rooms: there is the hall,
through which everyone passes in going in and out; the drawing-
room, where one receives formal visits; the sitting-room, where
the members of the family come and go as they list; but beyond
that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors
perhaps are never turned; no one knows the way to them, no one
knows whither they lead; and in the innermost room, the holy of
holies, the soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never