dreamy, invaded by both sides of every question. Whatever she did, her
needlework, her verse-making, her painting, all had its charm; but it was
not always what it was intended for at the beginning. Nicholas Treffry
had once said of her: "When Chris starts out to make a hat, it may turn
out an altar-cloth, but you may bet it won't be a hat." It was her
instinct to look for what things meant; and this took more than all her
time. She knew herself better than most girls of nineteen, but it was
her reason that had informed her, not her feelings. In her sheltered
life, her heart had never been ruffled except by rare fits of
passion--"tantrums" old Nicholas Treffry dubbed them--at what seemed to
her mean or unjust.

"If I were a man," she said, "and going to be great, I should have wanted
to begin at the very bottom as you did."

"Yes," said Harz quickly, "one should be able to feel everything."

She did not notice how simply he assumed that he was going to be great.
He went on, a smile twisting his mouth unpleasantly beneath its dark
moustache--"Not many people think like you! It's a crime not to have
been born a gentleman."

"That's a sneer," said Christian; "I didn't think you would have
sneered!"

"It is true. What is the use of pretending that it isn't?"

"It may be true, but it is finer not to say it!"

"By Heavens!" said Harz, striking one hand into the other, "if more truth
were spoken there would not be so many shams."

Christian looked down at him from her seat on the stile.

"You are right all the same, Fraulein Christian," he added suddenly;
"that's a very little business. Work is what matters, and trying to see
the beauty in the world."

Christian's face changed. She understood, well enough, this craving
after beauty. Slipping down from the stile, she drew a slow deep breath.

"Yes!" she said. Neither spoke for some time, then Harz said shyly:

"If you and Fraulein Greta would ever like to come and see my studio, I
should be so happy. I would try and clean it up for you!"

"I should like to come. I could learn something. I want to learn."

They were both silent till the path joined the road.

"We must be in front of the others; it's nice to be in front--let's
dawdle. I forgot--you never dawdle, Herr Harz."

"After a big fit of work, I can dawdle against any one; then I get
another fit of work--it's like appetite."

"I'm always dawdling," answered Christian.

By the roadside a