y closed with
it. "I've come--I hope you won't mind--Mrs. Bell, Elfrida
has been quoting Rousseau in her compositions, and I
thought you'd like to know."

"In the original?" asked Mrs. Bell, with interest. "I
didn't think her French was advanced enough for that."

"No, from a translation," Miss Kimpsey replied. "Her
sentence ran: 'As the gifted Jean Jacques Rousseau told
the world in his "Confessions"'--I forget the rest. That
was the part that struck me most. She had evidently been
reading the works of Rousseau."

"Very likely. Elfrida has her own subscription at the
library," Mrs. Bell said speculatively. "It shows a taste
in reading beyond her years, doesn't it, Miss Kimpsey?
The child is only fifteen."

"Well, _I've_ never read Rousseau," the little teacher
stated definitely. "Isn't he--atheistical, Mrs. Bell,
and improper every way?"

Mrs. Bell raised her eyebrows and pushed out her lips at
the severity of this ignorant condemnation. "He was a
genius, Miss Kimpsey--rather I should say he _is_, for
genius cannot die. He is much thought of in France. People
there make a little shrine of the house he occupied with
Madame Warens, you know."

"Oh!" returned Miss Kimpsey, "_French_ people."

"Yes. The French are peculiarly happy in the way they
sanctify genius," said Mrs. Bell vaguely, with a feeling
that she was wasting a really valuable idea.

"Well, you'll have to excuse me, Mrs. Bell. I'd always
heard you entertained about as liberal views as there
were going on any subject, but I didn't expect they
embraced Rousseau." Miss Kimpsey spoke quite meekly. "I
know we live in an age of progress, but I guess I'm not
as progressive as some."

"Many will stay behind," interrupted Mrs. Bell impartially,
"but many more will advance."

"And I thought maybe Elfrida had been reading that author
without your knowledge or approval, and that perhaps
you'd like to know."

"I neither approve nor disapprove," said Mrs. Bell,
poising her elbow on the table, her chin upon her hand,
and her judgment, as it were, upon her chin. "I think
her mind ought to develop along the lines that nature
intended; I think nature is wiser than I am"--there was
an effect of condescending explanation here--"and I don't
feel justified in interfering. I may be wrong--"

"Oh no!" said Miss Kimpsey.

"But Elfrida's reading has always been very general. She
has a remarkable mind, if you will excuse my saying so;
it devours everything. I c