back his head and laughed loud and long. "And you would
have me believe that all that is what moves you to admiration. Don't you
know, my dear child, that you love your friend in spite of her tomboy
eccentricities, not because of them? You wouldn't be or do one of those
things if you could."

Again Magdalena hesitated. The implied approval was delightful; but she
would not hold it on false pretences. She answered firmly,--

"I went to the fire with her."

"You? Delightful! Tell me about it. Every detail."

She told him everything except the terrible sequel. It was lamely
presented, but he cared nothing for the episode. His sympathies were
immediate if temporary, and experience had eaten off the very cover of
the book of seals. He followed her through every mental phase she
unconsciously rehearsed; and when she brought the story to an abrupt
close, lacking the art to run it off into generalities, he inferred
something of the last development and did not press her to continue. He
pitied her grimly. But he was an intensely practical man.

"You must never think of doing that sort of thing again," he said.
"Unless a person is naturally eccentric, the attempt to be so
demoralises him, because there is nothing so demoralising as
failure--except on one's own particular lines. Did you, for instance,
jump on a horse and career barebacked through Menlo Park like a wild
Indian,--a performance which your friend would probably carry off with
any amount of dash and _chic_--you would feel a hopeless fool; whereas,"
he gave her a keen side glance, "if you felt that you possessed a
talent--for music, say--and failed forty times before achieving success,
you would feel that your failures partook of the dignity of their cause,
and of your own character."

She turned to him with quickening pulse. "Do you think," she faltered,
hunting for phrases that would not commit her, "that if a person loved
an art very much, even if he could not be sure that he had genius, that
he would be right to go on and on, no matter how often he became
discouraged?"

Her eyes were staring at her horse's neck; she did not see him smile. He
had felt quite sure that she sought relief for the silences of her life
in literary composition. When an unattractive woman has not talent she
finds a double revenge in the torture of words, he thought. What shall I
say to her? That she is whittling thorns for her own soul? Bah! Did I
not find enjoyment once in the very