"The best of all the flowers are born in May,--violets."

"But they are born in the shade, and cling to it. Surely, as a child
of May, you love the sun!"

"I love the sun; it is never too bright nor too warm for me. But I
don't think that, though born in May, I was born in sunlight. I feel
more like my own native self when I creep into the shade and sit down
alone. I can weep then."

As she thus shyly ended, the character of her whole countenance was
changed: its infantine mirthfulness was gone; a grave, thoughtful,
even a sad expression settled on the tender eyes and the tremulous
lips.

Kenelm was so touched that words failed him, and there was silence for
some moments between the two. At length Kenelm said, slowly,--

"You say your own native self. Do you, then, feel, as I often do,
that there is a second, possibly a /native/, self, deep hid beneath
the self,--not merely what we show to the world in common (that may be
merely a mask), but the self that we ordinarily accept even when in
solitude as our own, an inner innermost self, oh so different and so
rarely coming forth from its hiding-place, asserting its right of
sovereignty, and putting out the other self as the sun puts out a
star?"

Had Kenelm thus spoken to a clever man of the world--to a Chillingly
Mivers, to a Chillingly Gordon--they certainly would not have
understood him. But to such men he never would have thus spoken. He