have often heard undergraduates say the same sort of thing. They
are restless, they want to go out into life, they want to work; and
when they begin to work all that disquiet disappears. It's a great
mercy to have things to do, whether one likes it or not. Work is an
odd thing! There is hardly a morning at Cambridge when, if someone
came to me and offered me the choice of doing my ordinary work or
doing nothing for a day, I shouldn't choose to do nothing. And yet
I enjoy my work, and wouldn't give it up for anything. It is odd
that it takes one so long to learn to like work, and longer still
to learn that one doesn't like idleness. And yet it is to win the
power of being idle that makes most people work. Idleness seems so
much grander and more dignified."

"It IS curious," said Maud, "but I seem to have inherited papa's
taste for occupation, without his energy. I wish you would advise
me what to do. Can't one find something?"

"What does my aunt say?" said Howard.

"Oh, she smiles in that mysterious way she has," said Maud, "and
says we have to learn to take things as they come. She knows
somehow how to do without things, how to wait; but I can't do that
without getting dreary."

"Do you ever try to write?" said Howard.

"Yes," said Maud, laughing, "I have tried to write a story--how did
you guess that? I showed it to Cousin Anne, and she said it was
very nice; and when I showed it to Jack, and told him what she had
said, he read a little, and said that that was exactly what it