expression settled on the tender eyes and the tremulous lips.

Kenelm was so touched that words failed him, and there was silence for
some moments between the two. At length Kenelm said, slowly,--

"You say your own native self. Do you, then, feel, as I often do, that
there is a second, possibly a _native_, self, deep hid beneath the
self,--not merely what we show to the world in common (that may be
merely a mask), but the self that we ordinarily accept even when in
solitude as our own, an inner innermost self, oh so different and
so rarely coming forth from its hiding-place, asserting its right of
sovereignty, and putting out the other self as the sun puts out a star?"

Had Kenelm thus spoken to a clever man of the world--to a Chillingly
Mivers, to a Chillingly Gordon--they certainly would not have understood
him. But to such men he never would have thus spoken. He had a vague
hope that this childlike girl, despite so much of childlike talk, would
understand him; and she did at once.

Advancing close to him, again laying her hand on his arm, and looking up
towards his bended face with startled wondering eyes, no longer sad, yet
not mirthful,--

"How true! You have felt that too? Where _is_ that innermost self,
so deep down,--so deep; yet when it does come forth, so much
higher,--higher,--immeasurably higher than one's everyday self? It does
not tame the butterflies; it longs to get to the stars. And then,--and
then,--ah, how soon it fades back again! You have felt that. Does it not
puzzle you?"

"Very much."

"Are there no wise books about it that help to explain?"

"No wise books in my very limited reading even hint at the puzzle. I
fancy that it is one of those insoluble questions that rest between the
infant and his Maker. Mind and soul are not the same things, and what
you and I call 'wise men' are always confounding the two--"

Fortunately for all parties--especially the reader; for Kenelm had here
got on the back of one of his most cherished hobbies, the distinction
between psychology and metaphysics, soul and mind scientifically or
logically considered--Mrs. Cameron here entered the room, and asked him
how he liked the picture.

"Very much. I am no great judge of the art. But it pleased me at once,
and now that Miss Mordaunt has interpreted the intention of the painter
I admire it yet more."

"Lily chooses to interpret his intention in her own way, and insists
that Blanche's expression of countenan