deas I should not be understood, but be considered more mad than they
think me at present; hence my silence. I never knew anyone but you who
thought even in the slightest degree like myself, and therefore to you I
feel less inclined to be reserved than to others; in fact, with you I
feel it impossible to be reserved at all.

"It is as if you had some power over me to draw out my ideas--to draw me
out of myself. All my life I have longed to know someone; to have some
friend who was unlike the rest of the world, and more like myself, who
could understand me, and to whom I could pour out my thoughts, and feel
that they were not poured out upon a desert soil."

"Do you know, Miss Maud," said I, "that from the very first I saw that
you were quite different to any other young lady that I had ever met
with? But far from regarding you in the light that I know your family
regard you, I conceived an immense respect for you as a being of a
higher order than the generality of young ladies. There was much, too,
that puzzled me in your character. I was convinced that you could not
but be aware that your abilities were above the ordinary, and it
surprised me much that you should care so little about showing them, or
even asserting your right against the--the tyranny, if I may say so--of
your sisters."

"Well, it is my nature," she said. "What is it to me if they _do_ have
their own way in everything. I do not think it a matter worth disputing
about. I do not live in their world, nor they in mine."

"And do you not long to make yourself better understood to your
sisters?" I asked, after a pause.

"I should like to," she replied; "but that is impossible."

"Why impossible?" I asked. "Have you ever tried to do so?"

"No; but from my knowledge of their characters it would be useless." She
paused, and then added, "Do you know that I sometimes wish that I were
better suited to this world than I am? My nature is so very peculiar
that perhaps you would laugh at me were I to tell you some of my
peculiarities."

"No," said I; "I do not think I should laugh at any peculiarities of
your nature, whatever they might be. Your nature is one to study gravely
and reflect upon, not to laugh at."

"I mean," said she, "that my temperament is subject to certain phenomena
that many, perhaps _you_, might call hallucinations. I have never
confided this to anyone before, fearing that I should be ridiculed or
perhaps placed under the hands of some ign