amental letters. Darsie read them with a
thrill of appreciation--

"Two men looked out through prison bars,
One saw mud, the other stars!"

The eyes of the two girls met, and lingered. Then Darsie spoke--

"That's your motto in life! You look out for stars--"

"Yes! So do you. That's why I wanted to be friends."

"I wonder!" mused Darsie, and sat silent, gazing into the fire. "It is
beautiful, and I understand the drift, but--would you mind paraphrasing
it for my benefit?"

"It's so simple. There _is_ mud, and there _are_ stars. It's just a
choice of where we choose to look."

"Yes--I see. But don't you think there are times--when one is awfully
down on one's luck, for instance--when there's no one on earth so trying
as the persistent optimist who _will_ make the best of everything, and
take a cheerful view! You want to murder him in cold blood. I do, at
least. You feel ever so much more cheered by some one who acknowledges
the mud, and says how horrid it is, and pities you for sticking so
fast!"

Margaret's ringing laugh showed all her pretty white teeth. She rubbed
her hands together in delighted appreciation.

"Oh, I know, I know! I want to kill them, too. Vision's not a mite of
use without tact. But no bars can shut out the stars if we choose to
let them shine."

Her own face was ashine as she spoke, but anything more unlike
"goodiness," abhorred by every normal girl, it would be impossible to
imagine.

"Tell me about your work--how do you get on with your coach?" she asked
the next moment, switching off to ordinary subjects in the most easy and
natural of manners, and Darsie found herself laying bare all the little
hitches and difficulties which must needs enter into even the most
congenial course of study, and being alternately laughed at and
consoled, and directed towards a solution by brisk, apt words.

"You're all right--you've got a head. You'll come through on top, if
you'll be content to go slow. Want to take the Tripos first year, and
honours at that--that's your style! Calm down, my dear, and be content
to jog. It pays better in the end." She flashed a radiant smile at
Darsie's reddening face, then jumped up to greet her other guests of the
evening, three in number, who appeared at that moment, each carrying her
own precious portion of milk.

One was "Economics" and owned so square a jaw that the line of it (there
was no curve) seemed to run down straight with the