of the desert comes
back and possesses its own again. And, in obedience to that quiet,
Katherine's hand rested passively in the hand of her companion, while
she gazed wonderingly at the delicate, half-averted face, serious, lit
up by the eagerness of a vital enthusiasm. And, having a somewhat
sorrowful fund of learning to draw upon in respect of the dangers all
eccentricity, either of character or development, inevitably brings
along with it, she trembled, divining that noble and strong and pure
though it was, that face, and the temperament disclosed by it, might
work sorrow, both to its possessor and to others, unless the enthusiasm
animating it should find some issue at once large and simple enough to
engage its whole aspiration and power of work.

But abruptly Honoria broke up the brooding quiet, laughing gently, yet
with a catch in her throat.

"And when you had let in the light, Cousin Katherine, good heavens, how
thankful I was I had never married. Picture finding out all that after
one had bound oneself, after one had given oneself! What an awful
prostitution."--Her tone changed and she stroked the elder woman's hand
softly. "So you see you can't very well order me off, the pointing
finger of Thomas notwithstanding. You have taught me----"

"Only half the lesson as yet," Katherine said. "The other half, and the
doxology which closes it, neither I, nor any other woman, can teach
you."

"You really believe that?"

"Ah! my dear," Katherine said, "I do more than believe. I know it."

The younger woman regarded her searchingly. Then she shook her charming
head.

"It's no good to arrive at a place before you've got to it," she
declared. "And I very certainly haven't got to the second half of the
lesson, let alone the doxology, yet. And then I'm so blissfully content
with the first half, that I've no disposition to hurry. No, dear Cousin
Katherine, I am afraid you must resign yourself to put up with me for a
little while longer. Your foes, unfortunately, are of your own
household in this affair. Dr. Knott has just been holding forth to
us--Julius March, and Mr. Quayle, and me--and swearing me over, not
only to stay, but to make you eat and drink and come out of doors, and
even to go away with me. Because--yes, in a sense your Thomas is right
with his pointing finger, though he got a bit muddled, good man, not
being quite up-to-date, and pointed to the wrong place----"

Honoria left her sentence unfinished. Sh