groves
and moonlit lawns, and their faces turned to the line of rich men's
houses which mounted out of the night like a tall, impregnable fortress.
Some were grey-haired. Such traffic was perilous as it was ugly, for
somehow there were babies who were born blind because of it! That was
the sum of her knowledge. What followed the grave kisses shown in
pictures, what secret Romeo shared with Juliet, she did not know, she
would not know.

Twice she had refused to learn the truth. Once a schoolfellow named Anna
McLellan, a minister's daughter, a pale girl with straight, yellow hair
and full, whitish lips, had tried to tell her something queer about
married people as they were walking along Princes Street, and Ellen had
broken away from her and run into the Gardens. The trees and grass and
daffodils had seemed not only beautiful but pleasantly un-smirched by
the human story. And in the garret at home, in a pile of her father's
books, she had once found a medical volume which she knew from the words
on its cover would tell her all the things about which she was
wondering. She had laid her fingers between its leaves, but a shivering
had come upon her, and she ran downstairs very quickly and washed her
hands. These memories made her feel restless and unhappy, and she drove
her attention back to the platform and beautiful Mrs. Mark Lyle. But
there came upon her a fantasy that she was standing again in the garret
with that book in her hands, and that Mr. Philip was leaning against
the wall in that dark place beyond the window laughing at her, partly
because she was such a wee ninny not to know, and partly because when
she did know the truth there would be something about it which would
humiliate her. She cast down her eyes and stared at the floor so that
none might see how close she was to tears. She was a silly weak thing
that would always feel like a bairn on its first day at school; she was
being tormented by Mr. Philip. Even the very facts of life had been
planned to hurt her.

Oh, to be like that man from Rio! It was his splendid fate to be made
tall and royal, to be the natural commander of all men from the moment
that he ceased to be a child. He could captain his ship through the
steepest seas and fight the pirate frigate till there was nothing
between him and the sunset but a few men clinging to planks and a
shot-torn black flag floating on the waves like a rag of seaweed. For
rest he would steer to small islands, wher