"Me? Oh, I am as glad, now, as I can ever be, because, you see, to me it
is already done."

For a long minute he looked at her without speaking, then turned his
face away to gaze out over the river and the hills; but his eyes were
the eyes of one who looks without seeing.

Slowly, he said: "I wish I could be sure. There was a time when I
was--when I believed in myself. It seems to me, now, that it was years
and years ago. I thought, then, that nothing could shake me in my
purpose; that nothing could check me in my ambition. I saw myself going
straight on to the goal I had set for myself as certainly as--well, as
your river ever there goes on to the sea. But now--" He shook his head
sadly.

Auntie Sue laughed. "You foolish boy. My river out there doesn't go
straight at all. It meets all sorts of obstacles, and is beset by all
sorts of conflicting influences, and so is forced to wind and twist and
work its way along; but, the big, splendid thing about the river is that
it keeps going on. It never stops to turn back. No matter what happens
to it, it never stops. It goes on and on and on unto the very end, until
it finally loses itself in the triumph of its own achievement,--the
sea."

"And you think that I can go on?" he asked, doubtingly.

"I know you can go on," she answered with conviction.

"But, why are you so sure?"