aid, "What it tells about the Roc's egg and the Old Man
of the Sea and the Serpent is not true, but what it says about the
actions and motives of people is true, because people have acted in that
way and have thought like that through all the ages, and the tales have
lived because of it, and have been written in all languages." I was sure,
when I said it, that you did not quite understand; but you were to grow
to it, which was all that was required.

Blessed child, what your Geoffrey Fox has done, though I hate him for it
and blame him, is what other hotheads have done. The protective is not
the primitive masculine instinct. Men have thought of themselves first
and of women afterward since the beginning of time. Only with
Christianity was chivalry born in them. And since many of our youths have
elected to be pagan, what can you expect?

So your Geoffrey Fox being pagan, primitive--primordial, whatever it is
now the fashion to call it, reverted to type, and you were the victim.

I have read his letter and might find it in my heart to forgive him were
it not that he has made you suffer; but that I cannot forgive; although,
indeed, his coming blindness is something that pleads for him, and his
fear of it--and his fear of losing you.

I am glad that you are coming home to me. Margaret and her family are
going away, and we can have their big house to ourselves during the
summer. We shall like that, I am sure, and we shall have many talks, and
try to straighten out this matter of dreams--and of sunsets, which is
really very important, and not in the least to be ignored.

But let me leave this with you to ponder on. You remember how you have
told me that when you were a tiny child you walked once between me and my
good old friend, General Ross, and you heard it said by one of us that
life was what we made it. Before that you had always cried when it
rained; now you were anxious that the rain might come so that you could
see if you could really keep from crying. And when the rain arrived you
were so immensely entertained that you didn't shed a tear, and you went
to bed that night feeling like a conqueror, and never again cried out
against the elements.

It would have been dreadful if all your life you had gone on crying about
rain, wouldn't it? And isn't this adventure your rainy day? You rose
above it, dearest child. I am proud of the way you handled your mad
lover.

Life _is_ what we make it. Never doubt that. "He know