nderstand."

"But what is it that you want, or expect to find, that you may not have
right here?"

Then she told him all that he had expected to hear. Told him earnestly,
passionately, of the life she craved, and of the sordid, commonplace
narrowness and emptiness--as she saw it--of the life from which she
sought to escape. And as she talked the man's good heart was heavy with
sadness and pity for her.

"Oh, girl, girl," he cried, when she had finished. "Can't you--won't
you--understand? All that you seek is right here--everywhere about
you--waiting for you to make it your own, and with it you may have here
those greater things without which no life can be abundant and joyous.
The culture and the intellectual life that is dependent upon mere
environment is a crippled culture and a sickly life. The mind that
cannot find its food for thought wherever it may be planed will never
hobble very far on crutches of superficial cults and societies. You are
leaving the substance, child, for the shadow. You are seeking the fads
and fancies of shallow idlers, and turning your back upon eternal facts.
You are following after silly fools who are chasing bubbles over the
edge of God's good world. Believe me, girl, I know--God! but I do know
what that life, stripped of its tinseled and spangled show, means. Take
the good grain, child, and let the husks go."

As the man spoke, Kitty watched him as though she were intently
interested; but, in truth, her thoughts were more on the speaker than on
what he said.

"You are in earnest, aren't you, Patches?" she murmured softly.

"I am," he returned sharply, for he saw that she was not even
considering what he had said. "I know how mistaken you are; I know what
it will mean to you when you find how much you have lost and how little
you have gained."

"And how am I mistaken? Do I not know what I want? Am I not better able
than anyone else to say what satisfies me and what does not?"

"No," he retorted, almost harshly, "you are not. You _think_ it is the
culture, as you call it, that you want; but if that were really it, you
would not go. You would find it here. The greatest minds that the world
has ever known you may have right here in your home, on your library
table. And you may listen to their thoughts without being disturbed by
the magpie chatterings of vain and shallow pretenders. You are attracted
by the pretentious forms and manners of that life; you think that
because a certain