the pages with eager interest to see if
they furnish a key to the path along which she travelled in solving her
problems. The expectation is realized, and in reading the pages of the
novel we find the secret of the assurance and happy courage which
characterized her. Whether she intended it or not, many parts of the
book are without doubt autobiographical. In this chapter we propose to
give some extracts from the novel which we consider justify the belief
that the authoress is describing her own experiences.

The first extract refers to her "discovery" that she was almost entirely
without fear. The heroine is Hildeguard Forrest, a woman of
thirty-seven, a High School teacher. During a boating accident, which
might have resulted fatally, the fact reveals itself to Hildeguard that
she does not know what fear is. The story of the accident closes with
these words:

"Self-revelation is not usually a pleasant process. Not often do we
find ourselves better than we expected. Usually the sudden flash
that shows us ourselves makes us blush with shame at the sight we
see. But very rarely, and for the most part for the people who are
not self-conscious, the flash may, in a moment, reveal unknown
powers or unsuspected strength.

"And Hildeguard, sitting back in the boat, suddenly realized she
wasn't a coward. She looked back in surprise over her life, and
remembered that the terror which as a child would seize her in a
sudden emergency was the fear of being parted from her mother, not
any personal fear for herself, or her own safety.

"Such a pleasurable glow swept over her as she sat there in the
rocking boat. 'Why, no,' she thought; 'I wasn't frightened.'"

A similar accident befell Elsie Inglis when a young woman. Whether the
absence of fear disclosed itself to her then or not cannot be said, but
she is known to have said to a friend after her return from Serbia: "It
was a great day in my life when I discovered that I did not know what
fear was."

Benjamin Kidd in _The Science of Power_ gives (unintentionally) an
indication where to look for the secret of the childless woman's feeling
of loneliness--_she has no link with the future_. He affirms that woman
because of her very nature has her roots in the future. "To women," he
says, "the race is always more than the individual; the future greater
than the present."

As we follow Hildeguard through the pag