d alone better than others."

"Anna seems to get on very well," said Delia. "People always like her."

"Yes, yes, yes," said the Professor, nodding his head gently, "so I
should think--so I should think. But when I say a `friend,' Delia, I
don't mean that sort of thing; I mean some one who's willing to take a
little trouble."

"I don't see how you can be a friend to a person that doesn't want you,"
said Delia, impatiently. "If Anna wanted me--"

"You're not displeased with her about anything, I hope?" said the
Professor, anxiously; "she has not offended you?"

Delia hesitated. She could not bear to disappoint him, as he waited
eagerly for her answer.

"The fact is," she said at length, "I don't understand Anna. She
doesn't look at things in the same way as I do. She gets on better with
the Palmers than with me."

"I'm sorry for that," said the Professor, with a discouraged air, "but
Anna's very young, you know, in years and character too. I daresay she
needs patience."

"I'm afraid I've not been patient," said Delia, humbly.

Mr Goodwin was the only person in the world to whom she was always
ready to own herself in the wrong.

"Oh, well, patience comes with years," he said; "you're too young yet to
know much about it. It's often hard enough, even after a long life, to
bear with the failings of others, and to understand our own. People are
so different. Some are strong, and some are weak. And the strong ones
are always expecting the weak ones to stand upright as they do, and go
straight on their way without earing for praise or blame. And, of
course they can't--it's not in them--they stumble and turn aside at
little things that the others wouldn't notice. And the weak ones, to
whom, perhaps, it is natural to be sweet-tempered, and yielding, and
forgiving, expect those virtues from the strong--and they don't find
them--and then they wonder how it is that they find it hard to forgive
and impossible to forget, and call them harsh and unbearable. And so we
go on misunderstanding instead of helping each other."

Delia's face softened. Perhaps she had been too hasty with Anna--too
quick to blame.

"Listen," said the Professor, "I was reading this while I waited for
service to begin this evening."

He had taken out of his pocket a stumpy, and very shabby little brown
volume of Thomas a Kempis, which was very familiar to her.

"But now, God hath thus ordered it, that we may learn to bear one
anot