rroundings,
and alter the inclination of one's mind accordingly. Still, as a matter
of fact, I felt very ill!"

"And to-day?" she asked.

"To-day I am myself again," he answered quickly: "that usual normal self
of mine, whatever that may mean. I slept well, and I dreamed of you.
I can't say that I had been thinking of you, because I had not. But I
dreamed that we were children together, and playmates. Now that was very
odd: because I was a lonely child, and never had any playmates."

"And I was lonely too," said Bernardine.

"Every one is lonely," he said, "but every one does not know it."

"But now and again the knowledge comes like a revelation," she said,
"and we realise that we stand practically alone, out of any one's reach
for help or comfort. When you come to think of it, too, how little able
we are to explain ourselves. When you have wanted to say something which
was burning within you, have you not noticed on the face of the listener
that unmistakable look of non-comprehension, which throws you back on
yourself? That is one of the moments when the soul knows its own
loneliness!"

Robert Allitsen looked up at her.

"You little thing," he said, "you put things neatly sometimes. You have
felt, haven't you?"

"I suppose so," she said. "But that is true of most people."

"I beg your pardon," he answered, "most people neither think nor feel:
unless they think they have an ache, and then they feel it!"

"I believe," said Bernardine, "that there is more thinking and feeling
than one generally supposes."

"Well, I can't be bothered with that now," he said. "And you interrupted
me about my dream. That is an annoying habit you have."

"Go on," she said. "I apologize!"

"I dreamed we were children together, and playmates," he continued. "We
were not at all happy together, but still we were playmates. There was
nothing we did not quarrel about. You were disagreeable, and I was
spiteful. Our greatest dispute was over a Christmas-tree. And that was
odd, too, for I have never seen a Christmas-tree."

"Well?" she said, for he had paused. "What a long time you take to tell
story."

"You were not called Bernardine," he said. "You were called by some
ordinary sensible name. I don't remember what. But you were very
disagreeable. That I remember well. At last you disappeared, and I went
about looking for you 'If I can find something to cause a quarrel,'
I said to myself, 'she will come back.' So I went and smashed