said.

She looked around apprehensively. The man who mended the boats knowing
about Ann? Was the whole world losing its mind just because it had been
such a hot day?

But the world looking natural enough, she turned back to him. "I don't
understand. Tell me, please."

As he summoned it, he changed. She had an impression of all but the
central thing falling away, leaving his spirit exposed. And a thought or
a vision gripped that spirit, and he tightened under it as a muscle
would tighten.

When he turned to her, taking her in, self-consciousness fell away. There
was no place for it.

"You want to hear about it?" he asked.

She nodded.

"As a matter of fact, it's nothing, as facts go. Only an impression. Yet
an impression that swore to facts. Perhaps you know that she came on the
Island from the south bridge?"

Katie shook her head. "I know nothing, save that suddenly she was there."

That held him. "And knowing nothing, you took her in?"

She kept silence, and he looked at her, dwelling upon it. "And you," he
said softly, "don't know anything about the 'underlying principles of
life'? Perhaps you don't. But if we had more you we'd have no her."

She disclaimed it. "It wasn't that way--an understanding way. I didn't do
it because I thought it should be done; because I wanted to--do good.
I--oh, I don't know. I did it because I wanted to do it. I did it because
I couldn't help doing it."

That called to him. He seemed one for whom ideas were as doors, ever
opening into new places. And he did not shut those doors, or turn from
them, until he had looked as far as he could see.

"Perhaps," he saw now, "that is the way it must come. Doing it because
you can't help doing it. It seems wonderful enough to work the wonder."

"Work what wonder?" Katie asked timidly.

"The wonder of saving the world."

He spoke it quietly, but passion, the passion of the visioner, leaped to
his eyes at sound of what he had said.

Katie looked about at so much of the world as her vision afforded:
Prosperous factories--beautiful homes--hundreds of other homes less
beautiful, but comfortable looking--some other very humble homes which
yet looked habitable, the beautifully kept Government island in between
the two cities, seeming to stand for something stable and unifying--far
away hills and a distant sky line--a steamboat going through the splendid
Government bridge, automobiles and carriages and farm wagons passing over
that brid