deal to be in
his shoes, to have his strength and his youth." I turned away, eager to
hear more, yet afraid lest the other man might say something to spoil it
all. But he did not. "Yes," he replied, "but he doesn't know how
fortunate he is. Gad, he looks like an imported bull."

The train came and I was whirred away, over streams, below great hanging
rocks; but I thought not of the grandeur of the rocks nor of the beauty
of the streams, for through my mind was running the delicious music of
the first compliment that had ever been paid me. And I realized that I
had outgrown the age of my awkwardness, that strength was of itself a
grace to be admired, that I should feel thankful rather than remember
with bitterness the days of my humiliation. I observed a woman looking
at me, and there was interest in her eyes, and I knew that she did not
take kindly to me simply because she was an old and neglected girl, for
she was handsome. Beside her sat a man, and I could see that he was
eager to win her smile. He hated me, I could see that, but he couldn't
laugh at me. I noticed that my hands and feet were not over large, and
this was a sort of surprise, for I recalled hearing a boy say that my
foot was the biggest thing he ever saw without a liver in it. I reached
back and wiped out the past; I looked out at a radiant cloud hanging low
in the west, and called it the future. Fool? Oh, of course. I had been a
fool when a boy, and was a fool now, but how much wiser it was to be a
happy fool.

I was to leave the train at Nagle station, and then to go some distance
into the country, which direction I knew not. I made so bold as to ask
the handsome lady if she knew anything of the country about Nagle, and
she smiled sweetly, and said that she did not, that she was a stranger
going South. I had surmised as much, and I spoke to her merely to see
what effect it would have on the man who sat beside her. Was my
new-found pride making me malicious? I thought it was, and I censured
myself. The lady showed a disposition to continue the talk, but the man
drove me into silence by remarking: "I suppose there is something novel
about one's first ride on the cars." How I did want to reach out and
take hold of his ear, but I thought of Bentley and subsided. When I
arose to get off at my station, I thought that the lady, as I passed
her, made a motion as if she would like to give me her hand. This might
simply have been the prompting of my long famish