in of repeated doses to
retract all the unkind remarks I have made about it. Mrs. Palling has
a horrible way of getting the better of me in the end. I am beginning
to think that a person who is always right is very trying to live with.
So much wisdom gives me a sort of mental indigestion. I used to think
nothing could be so irritating as a fool, but now I see why the
Corinthians of old suffered fools gladly. The sight of folly gives one
a comfortable feeling of superiority, and it is so nice to feel really
superior even if one has the grace not to show it."

"What have you been doing since I saw you last?" asked Philippa
presently.

"I have not been entirely idle. I have managed to get through quite a
respectable quantity of work."

"Another book?" asked the girl with interest.

Isabella nodded.

"Will it be quite as sad as the last?"

"No, I hardly think it will," she answered with a laugh. "I don't know
the reason though. I half think that the fact of knowing you has put
me in lighter vein. Talk about it not being good for a man to be
alone; I have come to the conclusion that it is ten times worse for a
woman. What a sentiment to come from me! For it is not long ago that
I was earnestly seeking a crack in the earth's surface which should be
just large enough to hold me, to the exclusion of every one else. It
must be your magic that has made this great change. Yes, the book is
creeping on, and some of it will stand, I think."

"Are you satisfied with it?"

"Not at all," was the frank answer. "There is nothing so disappointing
in the world as one's own writing; and yet one goes on. And so far as
I am concerned I can only say that every time I write "Chapter I" on a
new sheet of paper, I am full of conviction that this time at last I
shall scale the height of my ambition, and that the child of my brain
will be born to live. Not to have a few months or years of cheap
notoriety, but to live a life of much more than that--to make some
lasting impression on the hearts of the readers, and to have a healing
touch which will comfort when those hearts are sick and sore."

"If that is your ambition I think you have gained it," said Philippa
warmly. "You do not know your own power and you underrate your work."

"Do I? I wonder. I have attained something, perhaps, but attaining is
not achieving--that is where people make the mistake. Perhaps I
attempt the impossible. It may be that I have shot at the