parts of it to her admirers,
hoping thus to justify vanity, but they used the occasion to pay
irrelevant compliments, and so disappointed her--all, save Will
Thornton, who admitted critically that "it was poetic" and guessed "she
ought to write poetry." Accordingly she wrote some lyrics, and one on
"Vanished Hopes" really pleased her. Forthwith she read it to Will, who
decided "'twas fine, mighty fine. Tennyson had written more, of course,
but nothing better--nothing easier to understand."

That last phrase killed her trust in him. She sank into despondence.
Even when Ida Gul-more, whom she had learned to dislike, began to
outshine her in the class, she made no effort. To graduate first of her
year appeared a contemptible ambition in comparison with the dreams she
had foregone. About this period she took a new interest in her dress;
she grew coquettish even, and became a greater favourite than ever.
Then Professor Roberts came to the University, and with his coming life
opened itself to her anew, vitalized with hopes and fears. She was drawn
to him from the first, as spirit is sometimes drawn to spirit, by an
attraction so imperious that it frightened her, and she tried to hold
herself away from him. But in her heart she knew that she studied and
read only to win his praise. His talents revealed to her the futility of
her ambition. Here was one who stood upon the heights beyond her power
of climbing, and yet, to her astonishment, he was very doubtful of
his ability to gain enduring reputation. Not only was there a plane of
knowledge and feeling above the conventional--that she had found out by
herself--but there were also table-lands where teachers of repute in the
valley were held to be blind guides. Her quick receptivity absorbed
the new ideas with eagerness; but she no longer deluded herself. Her
practical good sense came to her aid. What seemed difficult or doubtful
to the Professor must, she knew, be for ever impossible to her. And
already love was upon her, making her humility as sweet as was her
admiration. At last he spoke, and life became altogether beautiful to
her. As she learned to know him intimately she began to understand his
un-worldliness, his scholar-like idealism, and ignorance of men and
motives, and thus she came to self-possession again, and found her true
mission. She realized with joy, and a delightful sense of an assured
purpose in life, that her faculty of observation and practical insight,
th