woman of sense, though no better than herself, would not speak of. It
is exasperating to think that her eyes and fingers are endowed with a
sense of harmony and beauty, so that she can cut a gown and adorn her
lovely person to perfection, and yet be so idiotic as to make a
spectacle of herself in her real womanhood. As far as I can make out,
Nature is more to blame than the girl. There is not a bat blinking in
the sunlight more blind than she to every natural beauty of this June
day; and yet her eyes are microscopic, and she sees a host of little
things not worth seeing. A true womanly moral nature seems never to
have been infused into her being. She detests children, her little
sister shrinks from her; she speaks and surmises evil of the absent;
to strut down Fifth Avenue in finery, to which she has given her whole
soul, is her ideal of happiness--there, stop! She is the daughter of
my kind host and hostess. The mystery of this world's evil is sadly
exemplified in her defective character, from which sweet, true
womanliness was left out. I should pity her, and treat her as if she
were deformed. Poor Mrs. Yocomb! Even mother-love cannot blind her to
the truth that her fair daughter is a misshapen creature." After a
little, I added wearily, "I wish I had never seen her; I am the worse
for this day's mirage," and I closed my eyes in dull apathy.




CHAPTER V

MUTUAL DISCOVERIES


I must have slept for an hour or more, for when I awoke I saw through