which heaped upon him literary
classics in a dozen forms--fiction, essays, history, poetry, short
stories, criticism, fable, and the like; she laughed at her own quick
liking for the serious-minded, self-deprecatory, old-young man whose big
innocent eyes displayed a soul enamoured by the spirited intelligence of
an experienced and rather disillusioned young woman who had fled from
him partly because she did know what a sting it would give him.

So with light heart and singing tongue she floated away on the river,
not without a qualm at leaving those books with Rasba; she loved them
too much, but the sacrifice was so necessary--for his work! The river
needed him as a missionary. He could help ease the way of the old
sinners, and perhaps by and by he would reform her, and paint her again
with goodness where she was weather-beaten.

It is easy to go wrong on the Mississippi--just as easy, or easier, than
elsewhere in the world. The student of astronomy, gazing into the vast
spaces of the skies, feels his own insignificance increasing, while the
magnitude of the constellations grows upon him. What can it matter what
such a trifling thing, such a mere atom, as himself does when he is to
the worlds of less size than the smallest of living organisms in a drop
of water?

Nelia Crele looked around as she left the eddy and saw that her
houseboat was but a trifle upon a surface containing hundreds of square
miles. A human being opposite her on the bank was less in proportion
than a fly on the cabin window pane. Then what could it matter what she
did? Why shouldn't she be reckless, abandoned, and live in the gaiety of
ages?

She had read thousands of pages of all kinds with no guide posts or
moral landmarks. A picture of dangerous delights had come into her
imagination. Having read and understood so much, she had not failed to
discover the inevitable Nemesis on the trail of wrongdoing, as well as
the inevitableness of reward for steadfastness in virtues--but she
wondered doubtfully what virtue really was, whether she was not absolved
from many rigid commandments by the failure of the world to keep faith
with her and reward her for her own patience and atone for her own
sufferings.

It was easy, only too easy, on the surface to feel that if she wanted to
be gay and wanton, living for the hour, it was no one's affair but her
own. She fought the question out in her mind. She fixed her
determination on the young and, in one sense