nthy acted as though nothing had happened.

But there was one thing still on her mind. When I started for home,
toward noon, she followed me out on the little porch.

"David," she said, "I want to speak to you."

She hesitated.

"I want you to find Norton Carr."

She laid her hand on my arm. "He hasn't been quite fairly treated."

She smiled, and looked at me wistfully. "We've got to keep the _Star_
going somehow, haven't we?"

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIV

WE BEGIN THE SUBJUGATION OF NORT

Here is a curious and interesting thing often to be noted by any man who
looks around him, that we human creatures are all made up into uneven
and restless bundles--family bundles, church bundles, political-party
bundles, and a thousand amusing kinds of business bundles. It will also
be observed that a very large part of us, nearly all of us who are old
and most of us who are women, are struggling as hard as ever we can (and
without a bit of humour) to hold our small bundles together, while
others are struggling with equal ferocity to burst out of their bundles
and make new ones. And so on endlessly!

If you see any one particular specimen in any one particular bundle who
is making himself obnoxious by wriggling and squirming and twisting with
an utter disregard for the sensibilities of the bundle-binders, you may
conclude that he is affected by the most mysterious influence, or power,
or malady--whatever you care to call it--with which we small human
beings have to grapple. I mean that he is growing. When you come to
think of it, the most incalculable power in the life of men is the power
of growth. If you could tell when any given human being was through
growing, you could tell what to do with him; but you never can. Some men
are ripe at twenty-five, and some are still adding power and knowledge
at eighty. It is not inheritance, nor environment, nor wealth, nor
position, that measures the difference between human beings, but rather
the mysterious faculty of continued growth which resides within them. It
is growth that causes the tragedies of this world--and the
comedies--and the sheer beauty of life. Here are a husband and wife
bound together in the commonest of bundles: one stops growing, the other
keeps on growing; consult almost any play, novel, poem, newspaper, or
scandalous gossip, for the results. Consider the restless bundle of
nations called Europe, one of which recently began to grow tremendously,
bega