there were inches of the rankest growth on him within the last
twenty-four hours. To-night he was not even serious in his
conversation; and therefore he was the more awkward. His emotions
were unmanageable; much more his talk. But she who witnesses this
awkwardness and understands--does she ever fail to pardon?

"Last night," he said with a droll twinkle, after the evening was
about half spent, "there was one subject I did not speak to you
about--Man's place in Nature. Have you ever thought about that?"

"I've been too busy thinking about my place in the school!" said
Gabriella, laughing--Gabriella who at all times was simplicity and
clearness.

"You see Nature does nothing for Man except what she enables him to
do for himself. In this way she has made a man of him; she has
given him his resources and then thrown him upon them. Beyond that
she cares nothing, does nothing, provides, arranges nothing. I used
to think, for instance, that the greenness of the earth was
intended for his eyes--all the loveliness of spring. On the
contrary, she merely gave him an eye which has adapted itself to
get pleasure out of the greenness. The beauty of spring would have
been the same, year after year, century after century, had he never
existed. And the blue of the sky--I used to think it was hung about
the earth for his sake; and the colors of the clouds, the great
sunsets. But the blueness of the sky is nothing but the dust of the
planet floating deep around it, too light to sink through the
atmosphere, but reflecting the rays of the sun. These rays fall on
the clouds and color them. It would all have been so, had Man never
been born. The earth's springs of drinking water, refreshing