of conscience.

"I should not burden you with my problem," he said penitently. "Why
should youth be made to carry loads which belong to older shoulders?"

"Please--" the girl protested eagerly. "I want you to do it. I
appreciate your confidence so much that I am eager to be of some real
service."

"You like--responsibilities?" he queried.

"It isn't living to be without them, is it? They seem to come of their
own accord to men: a woman usually has to work hard to find any that are
worth while."

"Some women do," Huntington admitted; "others have more than their share
without deserving them. Burdens usually seek and find the willing
shoulders."

"Of course; but I mean the women who have been brought up as I have
been. I've always had everything I wanted, and my parents have protected
me against everything. They even protest when I rebel against my own
uselessness by going into settlement work, and in other small ways try
to express my individuality."

"Such as the course in bookbinding with Cobden-Sanderson?"

Merry smiled consciously. "That was such a poor attempt, because I had
no ability. My squares were uneven, my backs were wrinkled, and it was
really such sloppy work."

"Granting that what you say is true, yet the experience gained in doing
it enabled you to understand Hamlen to-day far better than if you had
never attempted it. That is the main point, isn't it?"

"I suppose nothing we do is ever wholly lost," she admitted. "I did
understand Mr. Hamlen, but that understanding has brought me no nearer
to the point where I can help him."

"You helped him to-day more than any one has ever done except
myself.--You see how frankly I accept first glory."

"I helped him?" Merry protested. "Why, I only listened and allowed
myself to be entertained."

"Yes; but there is a difference in the way one does even that. He
hesitated to show you his work and yet he wanted to show it to you. That
was the struggle between the habit of years to restrain his real feeling
and the desire which your sympathetic personality created in him. And
the desire won out. Each time the habit is broken its power over him
becomes weaker. Now do you see the value of the service you rendered
him?"

"It is wonderful how clearly you analyze things!" the girl exclaimed
admiringly. "All I could see was depressing, but you found encouragement
in everything."

"Surely those beautiful books encouraged you?"

"Yes; but they emphasized the