d make very good in a school-room, such as I had known. Her
work was spelled and periodic, phrased and paragraphed. The eyes of the
teachers, that had been upon her these many years, had turned back for
their ideas to authors who, if writing to-day, would be forced to change
the entire order and impulse of their craft.

She was suffused with shyness. Even the little girl so far had not
penetrated it. I was afraid to open the throttle anywhere, lest she
break and drop away. At the end of a week, The Abbot remained a moment
after she was gone, and looked at me with understanding and sorrow.

"I'm afraid I made a mistake in asking her to come," he said.

Just then I was impelled to try harder, because he saw the difficulty.
We had missed for days the joy from the session, that we had come to
expect and delight in. Yet, because he expressed it, I saw the shortness
and impatience of the point of view which had been mine, until he
returned it to me.

"We won't give up," I said. "It didn't happen for nothing."

When he went away I felt better; also I saw that there was a personal
impatience in my case that was not worthy of one who undertook to awaken
the young. I introduced The Valley-Road Girl to Addison's "Sir Roger."
There is an emptiness to me about Addison which I am not sure but
partakes of a bit of prejudice, since I am primarily imbued with the
principle that a writer must be a man before he is fit to be read. If I
could read Addison now for the first time, I should know. The
Valley-Road Girl's discussion of Addison was scholarly in the youthful
sense.

The day that she brought in this paper we got somehow talking about
Fichte. The old German is greatly loved and revered in this Study. He
set us free a bit as we discussed him, and I gave to the newcomer a
portion of one of his essays having to do with the "Excellence of the
Universe." The next day I read her paper--and there was a beam in it.

I shut my eyes in gratitude that I had not allowed my stupidity to get
away. I thanked The Abbot inwardly, too, for saying the words that set
me clearer. The contrast between Addison and Fichte in life, in their
work, in the talk they inspired here, and in The Valley-Road Girl's two
papers--held the substance of the whole matter--stumbled upon as usual.
We had a grand time that afternoon. I told them about Fichte losing his
positions, writing to his countrymen--a wanderer, an awakened soul. And
this brought us the hosts o