even her sense of high health. Why should she submit to be taken to task
like a school-girl by this man, himself still young? If this went on she
would let him hear.... But he was speaking again, and his reply calmed
her, and strengthened her conviction that he was a true and well-meaning
friend.

"Not that perhaps," he said, "because--well, because nature has blessed
you with perfect balance, and you go forward in full self-possession as
becomes the daughter of a hero. We must not forget that it is of your
soul that I am speaking; and that maintains its innate dignity of feeling
among so much that is petty and mean."

"Then why need I fear to look back when it gives me so much comfort?"
she eagerly enquired, as she gazed in his face with fresh spirit.

"Because it may easily lead you to tread on other people's feet! That
hurts them; then they are annoyed, and they get accustomed to think
grudgingly of you--you who are more lovable than they are."

"But quite unjustly; for I am not conscious of ever having intentionally
grieved or hurt any one in my whole life."

"I know that; but you have done so unintentionally a thousand times."

"Then it would be better I should quit them altogether."

"No, and a thousand times no! The man who avoids his kind and lives in
solitude fancies he is doing some great thing and raising himself above
the level of the existence he despises. But look a little closer: it is
self-interest and egoism which drive him into the cave and the cloister.