nt and wondered what
they would think. Some thought of the queerness of her deed affected
her. She went slowly down the stairs. She looked back up the lighted
step, and then affected to stroll up the street. When she reached the
corner she quickened her pace.

As she was hurrying away, Hanson came back to his wife.

"Is Carrie down at the door again?" he asked.

"Yes," said Minnie; "she said she wasn't going to do it any more."

He went over to the baby where it was playing on the floor and began to
poke his finger at it.

Drouet was on the corner waiting, in good spirits.

"Hello, Carrie," he said, as a sprightly figure of a girl drew near him.
"Got here safe, did you? Well, we'll take a car."

Chapter VIII. INTIMATIONS BY WINTER--AN AMBASSADOR SUMMONED

Among the forces which sweep and play throughout the universe, untutored
man is but a wisp in the wind. Our civilisation is still in a middle
stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by
instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason.
On the tiger no responsibility rests. We see him aligned by nature with
the forces of life--he is born into their keeping and without thought he
is protected. We see man far removed from the lairs of the jungles,
his innate instincts dulled by too near an approach to free-will, his
free-will not sufficiently developed to replace his instincts and afford
him perfect guidance.

He is becoming too wise to hearken always to instincts and desires; he
is still too weak to always prevail against them. As a beast, the forces
of life aligned him with them; as a man, he has not yet wholly learned
to align himself with the forces. In this intermediate stage he
wavers--neither drawn in harmony with nature by his instincts nor yet
wisely putting himself into harmony by his own free-will. He is even as
a wisp in the wind, moved by every breath of passion, acting now by his
will and now by his instincts, erring with one, only to retrieve by
the other, falling by one, only to rise by the other--a creature of
incalculable variability. We have the consolation of knowing that
evolution is ever in action, that the ideal is a light that cannot fail.
He will not forever balance thus between good and evil. When this jangle
of free-will instinct shall have been adjusted, when perfect under
standing has given the former the power to replace the latter entirely,
man will no longer vary. The needle of unde