adying to her eager nature. She was one of those
people who express every passing emotion, as a flower expresses each
wind that sways it upon its stalk. But with expression the emotion
ended.

"But she isn't fickle," Lewis had defended her once to a privileged
relation who had made the accusation, basing it on the fact that Athalia
had sewed her fingers off for the Missionary Society one winter and
done nothing the next--"Athalia ISN'T fickle," Lewis explained;
"fickle people are insincere. Athalia is perfectly sincere, but she
is temporary; that's all. Anyway, she wants to do something else this
winter, and 'Thalia must have her head."

"Your head's better than hers, young man," the venturesome relative
insisted.

"But it must be her head and not mine, Aunty, when it comes to doing
what she thinks is right, even if it's wrong," he said, smiling.

"Well, tell her she's a little fool!" cried the old lady, viciously.

"You can't do that with 'Thalia," Lewis explained, patiently, "because
it would make her unhappy. She takes everything so dreadfully hard; she
feels things more than other people do."

"Lewis," said the little, old, wrinkled, privileged great-aunt, "think
a little less of her feelings and a little more of your own, or you'll
make a mess of things."

Lewis Hall was too respectful to tell the old lady what he thought of
such selfish advice; he merely did not act upon it. Instead, he went on
giving a great deal of thought to Athalia's "feelings." That was why
he and she were climbing the hill in the dewy silence of this August
morning. Athalia had "felt" that she wanted to see the view--though
it would have been better for her to have rested in the station,
Lewis thought;--("I ought to have coaxed her out of it," he reproached
himself.) It certainly was a hard walk, considering that it followed
a broken night in the sleeping-car. They had left the train at five
o'clock in the morning, and were sitting in the station awaiting the
express when Athalia had had this impulse to climb the hill. "It looks
pretty steep," Lewis objected; and she flung out her hands with an
impatient gesture.

"I love to climb!" she said. So here they were, almost at the top,
panting and toiling, Athalia's skirts wet with dew, and Lewis's face
drawn with fatigue.

"Look!" she said; "it's all open! We can sit down and see all over the
world!" She left the road, springing lightly through the fringing bay
and briers toward an op