all. I have already received several replies, but
it is far more satisfactory to have a personal interview," returned the
spinster, staring very hard at Norah's hat, and craning her neck to see
how the bows were arranged at the back. "I am ordered to take a certain
amount of outdoor exercise daily, and as my friends are not able to
accompany me, I wish to meet with a lady who is interested in the same
subjects as myself, and with whom I can enjoy exchange of ideas as we
walk. You look rather young, but I gather from the fact of your having
replied to my advertisement, that you are--"

"I am very much interested. I should enjoy hearing your views, and,
though I am young, I have seen a great deal of life. I have travelled
more than most people, and am now alone in the world, and obliged to
earn my own living."

Norah had been in haste to reply, in order to avoid a more compromising
statement, but now she stopped short, surprised by a flash of delight
which illumined the listener's face.

"Ah-h!" cried Miss Mellor, in the rapturous tone of one who has suddenly
been granted a long-craved-for opportunity. "Then you have had
experience! You _know_! You _fed_! You agree with me that the history
of the human race, the throng of events, the multifarious forms of human
life are only the accidental form of the Idea; they do not belong to the
Idea itself, in which alone lies the adequate objectivity of the Will,
but only to that phenomenon which appears to the knowledge of the
individual, and which is just as foreign and unessential to the Idea
itself as the figures which they assume are to the clouds, or the foam
flakes to the brooks! So true! So deeply true! You agree with me, I
feel sure!"

"Certainly. Quite so. I mean to say--naturally! Oh, yes. By all
means!" gasped Norah weakly, and her head fell back against the chair.
She was not to know that the speaker had discovered her little speech in
a book only one short half-hour before, and had learned it off by heart
in the fond hope of being able to introduce it incidentally into
conversation, and she felt faint and dizzy with the effort of trying to
understand.

Miss Mellor saw that she had made an impression, and beamed with
complacent delight.

"Ah, yes; I see that we are at one!" she cried. "And is it not a
comfort to feel that, having once grasped this idea, we shall now be
able to distinguish between the Will and the Idea, and between the Idea
and i