ness.

"She thinks a great deal for one so young," was said of her frequently
by one or the other of her teachers. One finally went further and added,
"She has genius."

This was true. She had genius, but it was not specialised. It was not
genius which expressed itself through any one art. It was a genius for
life, for living herself, for aiding others to live, for vivifying
mere existence. She herself was, however, aware only of an eagerness
of temperament, a passion for seeing, doing, and gaining knowledge.
Everything interested her, everybody was suggestive and more or less
enlightening.

Her relatives thought her original in her fancies. They called them
fancies because she was so young. Fortunately for her, there was no
reason why she should not be gratified. Most girls preferred to spend
their holidays on the Continent. She elected to return to America every
alternate year. She enjoyed the voyage and she liked the entire change
of atmosphere and people.

"It makes me like both places more," she said to her father when she was
thirteen. "It makes me see things."

Her father discovered that she saw everything. She was the pleasure of
his life. He was attracted greatly by the interest she exhibited in
all orders of things. He saw her make bold, ingenuous plunges into all
waters, without any apparent consciousness that the scraps of knowledge
she brought to the surface were unusual possessions for a schoolgirl.
She had young views on the politics and commerce of different countries,
as she had views on their literature. When Reuben Vanderpoel swooped
across the American continent on journeys of thousands of miles, taking
her as a companion, he discovered that he actually placed a sort of
confidence in her summing up of men and schemes. He took her to see
mines and railroads and those who worked them, and he talked them over
with her afterward, half with a sense of humour, half with a sense of
finding comfort in her intelligent comprehension of all he said.

She enjoyed herself immensely and gained a strong picturesqueness of
character. After an American holiday she used to return to France,
Germany, or Italy, with a renewed zest of feeling for all things
romantic and antique. After a few years in the French convent she asked
that she might be sent to Germany.

"I am gradually changing into a French girl," she wrote to her father.
"One morning I found I was thinking it would be nice to go into a
convent, and a