want to talk, the more dumb I
become. I can't describe the sensation, but perhaps you have felt it
for yourself. Do tell me! Do you know what it is like to be shy? Did
you ever feel it?"

Peggy cudgelled her brains, unwilling to admit that any human experience
was beyond her ken, but no! not one single instance of the kind could
she remember. She had felt lonely at times, silent and unsociable, but
never shy! She shook her head.

"No--never! I love meeting strangers. It is like opening a new book.
You can never tell what good friends you may become. When I meet some
one for the first time, I look into her eyes, and say to myself--`What
is she? Why is she? What does she think? Right away down at the
bottom of her heart, what is she like? Do we belong to each other at
all, or is there no single point where we can meet?' It is so
interesting! I assure you I drove through the City the other day in an
omnibus, and discovered an affinity on the opposite seat! We just
looked at each other, and a sort of flash passed from her eyes to mine,
and I said to myself, `Oh, I _do_ like you!' and I knew as well as
possible that she was thinking the same of me. We never spoke, and may
never meet again, but we _were_ friends all the same, and when I went
away I said in my heart, `Good-bye, dear, good luck! So pleased to have
met you!' At other times I've seen people--Gr-r-r!" she hitched her
shoulders to her ears and spread out her hands in disgust, "quite
respectable and ordinary-looking creatures, but there! I wouldn't touch
them with the end of my umbrella!"

Eunice regarded her with pensive envy.

"Oh dear, I wish I felt like that! It would be like a book, as you say.
I love reading, but I always think real life is so different."

"And so much better! It's _true_," cried Peggy ardently, "and the other
is pretence. I think it's a glorious thing to live, and just most
marvellously and wonderfully interesting. Why, think of it--every day
is a mystery. You make your plans in the morning, but you know nothing
of what may happen before night! People sigh and moan over the
uncertainty of life, but that is ungrateful, for there are happy
surprises as well as sad, and all sorts of pleasant things cropping up
which one never expects. And it ought to go on growing more and more
beautiful as we grow older, and can appreciate and understand."

"Yes," sighed Eunice softly. "Oh yes, and so it will--for you, Peggy,