-do you? I
don't mean to."

"You are right. It is a bad habit."

"But are they better, the old things?"

The old man did not answer for a moment or two. He looked his visitor
through and through with his wise gray eyes--an investigation which
might have disconcerted some people, but Halcyone was unabashed.

"I know what you are doing," she said. "You are seeing the other side of
my head--and I wish I could see the other side of yours, I can the
Aunts' La Sarthe and Priscilla's, in a minute, but yours is different."

"I am glad of that--you might be disappointed, though, if you did see
what was there."

"I always want to see," she said simply--"see everything; and sometimes
I find the other side not a bit what this is--even in the birds and
trees and the beetles. But you must have a huge big one."

The old man laughed.

"You and I are going to be good acquaintances," he said. "Tell me some
more of Perseus. What more do you know of him?"

"I have only read 'The Heroes,'" Halcyone admitted, "but I know it by
heart--and I know it is all true though my governess says it is
fairy-tales and not for girls. I want to learn Greek, but they can't
teach me."

"That is too bad."

"When things are put vaguely I always want to know, them--I want to know
why Medusa turned into a gorgon? What was her sin?"

The old man smiled.

"I see," said Halcyone, "you won't tell me, but some day I shall know."

"Yes, some day you shall know," he said.

"They seem such great people, those Greeks; they knew everything--so the
preface of my 'Heroes' says, and I want to learn the things they
knew--mathematics and geometry, rather--and especially logic and
metaphysics, because I want to know the meaning of words and the art of
reasoning, and above everything I want to know about my own thoughts and
soul." "You strange little girl," said the old man. "Have you a soul?"

"I don't know, I have something in there," and Halcyone pointed to her
head--"and it talks to me like another voice, and when I am alone up a
tree away from people, and all is beautiful, it seems to make it tight
round here,--and go from my head into my side," and she placed her lean
brown paw over her heart.

"Yes--you perhaps have a soul," said the old man, and then he added,
half to himself--"What a pity."

"Why a pity?" demanded Halcyone.

"Because a woman with a soul suffers, and brings tribulation--but since
you have one we may as well teach you how to keep