sn't a
boy who talks much about himself, though he seems to; and I don't think
my father understood what he was feeling. Jack doesn't like being
interfered with, and he was getting to resent programmes being drawn
up. Papa is so tremendously keen about anything he takes up that he
carries one away; and then you come and smooth out all the
difficulties. It isn't always easy--" she broke off suddenly, and
added, "That is what Jack wants, what he calls something REAL. He is
bored with the life here, and yet he is always good about it."

"Do you like the life here?" said Howard. "I can't tell you what an
effect it all produces on me; it all seems so simple and beautiful. But
I know that one mustn't trust first impressions. People in picturesque
surroundings don't always feel picturesque. It is very pleasant to make
a drama out of one's life and to feel romantic--but one can't keep it
up--at least I can't. That must come of itself."

Howard felt that the girl was watching him with a look of almost
startled interest. She said in a moment, "Yes, that's quite true, and
it IS a difficulty. I should like to be able to talk to you about those
things--I hear so much about you, you know, from Jack, that you are not
like a stranger at all. Now papa has got the gift of romance; every bit
of his life is interesting and exciting to him--it's perfectly
splendid--but Jack has not got that at all. I seem to understand them
both, and yet I can't explain them to each other. I don't mean they
don't get on, but neither can quite see what the other is aiming at.
And I have felt that I ought to be able to do something. I can't
understand how you have cleared it up; but I am very glad and grateful
about it: it has been a trouble to me. Cousin Anne is wonderful about
it, but she seems able to let things alone in a way I can't dare to."

"Oh, one learns that as one gets older," said Howard. "One can't argue
things straight. One can only go on hoping and wishing, and if possible
understanding. I used to make a great mess of it with my pupils at one
time, by thinking one could talk them round; but one can't persuade
people of things, one can only just suggest, and let it be; and after
all no one ever resents finding himself interesting to some one else;
only it has got to be interest, and not a sense of duty."

"That is what Cousin Anne says," said Maud, "and when I am with her, I
think so too; and then something tiresome happens and I meddle, I