"You see, Miss Avies, I haven't been
very happy with my aunts, and I always thought it was their fault that
I wasn't. But during these weeks when I've been lying in bed I saw that
it was my own fault for being so gloomy about everything. Now that I've
got Martin--"

"Got him!" interrupted Miss Avies; "why, you've only just lost him!"

"No, I haven't," answered Maggie. "He didn't go away because he hated
me or was tired of me, he went away because he didn't want to do me any
harm, and I think he cared for me more just at that minute than he'd
ever done before. So I've nothing to spoil my memory of him. I daresay
we wouldn't have got on well, together, I don't think I would ever have
fascinated him enough to keep him with me for very long--but now I know
that he loved me at the very moment he went away and wasn't thinking
how ugly I was or what a nasty temper I had or how irritating I could
be."

"But, my dear child," said Miss Avies, astonished. "How can you say you
loved one another if you were always quarrelling and expecting to
part?" "We weren't always quarrelling," said Maggie. "We weren't
together enough, but if we had been it wouldn't have meant that we
didn't love one another. I don't think we'd ever been very happy, but
being happy together doesn't seem to me the only sign of love. Love
seems to me to be moments of great joy rising from every kind of
trouble and bother. I don't call tranquillity happiness."

"Well, you have thought things out," said Miss Avies, "and all of us
considering you so stupid--"

"I'm not going to squash myself into a corner any more," said Maggie.
"Why should I? I find I'm as good as any one else. I made Martin love
me--even though it was only for a moment. So I'm going to be shy no
longer."

"And here was I thinking you heart-broken," said Miss Avies.

"I'm going out into the world," said Maggie half to herself. "I'm going
to have adventures. I've been in this house long enough. I'm going to
see what men and women are really like--I know this isn't real here.
And I want to discover about religion too. Since Martin went away I've
felt that there was something in it. I can't think what and the aunts
can't think either; none of you know here, but some one must have found
out something. I'm going to settle what it all means."

"You've got your work cut out," said Miss Avies. "I'll come and see you
again one day soon."

"Yes, do," said Maggie.

When Miss Avies had gone Maggie