meet the future with hope. It was my loneliness
that terrified me. I thought it might be always so, but perhaps real
happiness awaits me out there. I may make true friends.'

She spoke eagerly, anxiously, seeking corroboration, looking to him for
encouragement with touching wistfulness, as if he had been a graybeard
and an old and trusted friend, rather than a mere youth in years, and an
acquaintance of only a few hours.

He felt the appeal, and tried to respond.

'Yes yes,' he said. 'Then, at least, one can always fight the world. If
we can't be loved, we can make ourselves feared. There's a great deal in
that.'

The girl was surprised at his warmth, and a little startled by his
philosophy.

'I could not think that,' she said softly. 'It must be terrible to be
feared--to meet always with doubt and shrinking where you look for
confidence and affection.'

'But when the world refuses to accept us, when it uses all our fine
emotions as scourges to torture us, then we must fight.'

'I--I fight the world!' The girl rose in some agitation, and raised two
tremulous hands, as if in evidence of her weakness.

The gesture staggered him a little. He had been not so much defining her
position as defending his own, and although he could see the futility of
his principle of resentment as applied to her case, it was not in his
nature to preach the pleasing gospel of sentimental optimism. He had no
words of comfort to offer her; the gentle platitudes of encouragement and
consolation she needed, and which would have fallen so glibly from the
lips of an average man, were impossible to him. He was silent.

'One had better die,' continued Lucy Woodrow, 'than live at enmity with
one's fellow-creatures. Ah! the world is good and kind, under its seeming
cruelties. People are more generous than we know, but we should meet them
with open hearts, and give a warm welcome to their affection and
confidence. There must be something evil in the nature that is shut out
from human sympathy, human fellowship--something wanting in the heart
that is lonely, where there are scores of men and women eager to give
friendship and love. We repel those who are drawn to us by their goodness
of heart; we refuse what we most long for, and then blame others because
we are unhappy.'

The girl was speaking the thoughts in which she had vainly sought
comfort. She ceased abruptly, and, moving to the side, stood with her
eyes turned yearningly back over the s