that kind of person, and that Charlotte
would object most strongly.

"What are we to do with him?" he asked. "He comes out for his holiday to
Italy, and behaves--like that; like the little child who ought to have
been playing, and who hurt himself upon the tombstone. Eh? What did you
say?"

Lucy had made no suggestion. Suddenly he said:

"Now don't be stupid over this. I don't require you to fall in love with
my boy, but I do think you might try and understand him. You are nearer
his age, and if you let yourself go I am sure you are sensible. You
might help me. He has known so few women, and you have the time.
You stop here several weeks, I suppose? But let yourself go. You are
inclined to get muddled, if I may judge from last night. Let yourself
go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand,
and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them. By
understanding George you may learn to understand yourself. It will be
good for both of you."

To this extraordinary speech Lucy found no answer.

"I only know what it is that's wrong with him; not why it is."

"And what is it?" asked Lucy fearfully, expecting some harrowing tale.

"The old trouble; things won't fit."

"What things?"

"The things of the universe. It is quite true. They don't."

"Oh, Mr. Emerson, whatever do you mean?"

In his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was quoting
poetry, he said:

"'From far, from eve and morning,
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I'

George and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We know that
we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all life
is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But
why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and
work and rejoice. I don't believe in this world sorrow."

Miss Honeychurch assented.

"Then make my boy think like us. Make him realize that by the side of
the everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes if you like, but a
Yes."

Suddenly she laughed; surely one ought to laugh. A young man melancholy
because the universe wouldn't fit, because life was a tangle or a wind,
or a Yes, or something!

"I'm very sorry," she cried. "You'll think me unfeeling, but--but--"
Then she became matronly. "Oh, but your son wants employment. Has he no
particular hobby? Why, I myself have worries, but I can gener