aight for the barn. I guess I know when it's wise to be absent from
places.

I unharnessed the mare, and watered and fed her; I climbed up into the
loft and put down a rackful of hay; I let the cows out into the pasture
and set up the bars. And then I stood by the gate and looked up into the
clear June sky. No man, I think, can remain long silent under the stars,
with the brooding, mysterious night around about him, without feeling,
poignantly, how little he understands anything, how inconsequential his
actions are, how feeble his judgments.

And I thought as I stood there how many a man, deep down in his heart,
knows to a certainty that he has escaped being an outcast, not because
of any real moral strength or resolution of his own, but because Society
has bolstered him up, hedged him about with customs and restrictions
until he never has had a really good opportunity to transgress. And some
do not sin for very lack of courage and originality: they are helplessly
good. How many men in their vanity take to themselves credit for the
built-up virtues of men who are dead! There is no cause for surprise
when we hear of a "foremost citizen," the "leader in all good works,"
suddenly gone wrong; not the least cause for surprise. For it was not he
that was moral, but Society. Individually he had never been tested, and
when the test came he fell. It will give us a large measure of true
wisdom if we stop sometimes when we have resisted a temptation and ask
ourselves why, at that moment, we did right and not wrong. Was it the
deep virtue, the high ideals in our souls, or was it the compulsion of
the Society around us? And I think most of us will be astonished to
discover what fragile persons we really are--in ourselves.

I stopped for several minutes at the kitchen door before I dared to go
in. Then I stamped vigorously on the boards, as if I had come rushing up
to the house without a doubt in my mind--I even whistled--and opened the
door jauntily. And had my pains for nothing!

The kitchen was empty, but full of comforting and homelike odours. There
was undoubtedly hot mush in the kettle. A few minutes later Harriet came
down the stairs. She held up one finger warningly. Her face was
transfigured.

"David," she whispered, "the baby's asleep."

So I tiptoed across the room. She tiptoed after me. Then I faced about,
and we both stood there on our tiptoes, holding our breath--at least I
held mine.

"David," Harriet whispered