ipped her arms around
the girl kneeling before her, as if seeking in love's touch inspiration
for love's words.

"I think you will always want to be good," she said, "and I think you
will always want to be beautiful. Women do, Sheila dear--even the
women who are least beautiful and least--good. It's part of being a
woman--just like loving things that are little and helpless.

"But, Sheila, being beautiful isn't enough! Even being good isn't
enough, though of course it ought to be. It's essential, but it isn't
enough. Every woman must have something else besides to make her
happy--something that is hers, _her own_! She must have that to be
beautiful _for_, and to be good for--she must have that to live for!

"And that is what you want, dear--the thing that is your own. You have
been born for that--you cannot be complete or content without it."

Mrs. Caldwell's voice rose, grave and rich with the harmonies of life,
through the peaceful room, and Sheila quivered responsively in the
circle of her arms. To the young girl, womanhood, that only yesterday
had been so far away, now seemed to be drawing thrillingly near with
all its attendant mysteries. And in her next question she took a step
to meet it:

"Grandmother, what is it?--the thing that will be mine?"

"Dear, how can I tell? It isn't the same for us all. For one woman it
is love; for another it is work; for some it is, blessedly, both work
and love. For me--now--it is _you_! How can I tell what it will be
for my little girl?"

"I want it!" whispered Sheila. "I want it!"

"You must wait for it, dear. You must wait for it to come to you. You
can't hurry life."

"But can't I do _anything_?"

"You can be good, and you can be beautiful, so that you'll be ready for
it when it comes. But"--and now Mrs. Caldwell smiled, and with her
smile the stress of the moment passed--"but not in Charlotte's frock!
It wouldn't be fair to make yourself beautiful with borrowed plumage,
would it, little bird of paradise? You'd only get a borrowed happiness
out of that--one that you hadn't a right to, and couldn't keep."

Sheila rose from her knees, smiling, too. "I'll go right upstairs and
take it off," she declared. "I want to play fair from the start--I
only _want_ what's really mine!"

And so, coming back, under Mrs. Caldwell's tactful guidance, from the
deep waters to the pleasant, shallow wavelets that lap the shores of
commonplace life, she began to bus