e's periods appeal to every generation. He wrote from the
heart as well as the head, and triumphed in the grace of nature."

Beth stopped short and coloured crimson, finding that every one in the
room was listening to her.

Mrs. Carne stood while she was speaking with a cup of tea in her hand,
and tried to catch Ideala's eye in order to signal with raised
eyebrows her contempt for Beth's opinion; but Ideala was listening
with approval.

"That is exactly what I think," she exclaimed, "only I could not have
expressed it so. You write yourself doubtless?"

But Beth had become confused, and only gazed at her by way of reply.
She felt she had done the wrong thing to speak out like that in such
surroundings, and she regretted every word, and burned with vexation.
Then suddenly in herself, as before, something seemed to say, or
rather to flash forth the exclamation for her comfort: "I shall
succeed! I shall succeed!"

She drew herself up and looked round on them all with a look that
transformed her. Such an assurance in herself was not to be doubted.
The day would come when they would be glad enough to see her, when she
too would be heard with respect and quoted. She, the least considered,
she in her shabby gloves, neglected, slighted, despised, alone, she
would arrive, would have done something--more than them all!

She arose with her eyes fixed on futurity, and was half-way home
before she came to and found herself tearing along through the rain
with her head forward and her hands clasped across her chest, urged to
energy by the cry in her heart, "I shall succeed! I shall succeed!"

"Who was that?" said Ideala in a startled voice when Beth jumped up
and left the room.

"The wife of that Dr. Maclure, you know," Mrs. Carne replied. "Her
manners seem somewhat abrupt. She forgot to say good-bye. I did not
know she was by way of being clever."

"By way of being clever!" Ideala ejaculated. "I wish I had known who
she was. Why didn't you introduce her? By way of being clever, indeed!
Why, she is just what I have missed being with all my cleverness, or I
am much mistaken, and that is a genius. And what is more important to
us, I suspect she is the genius for whom we are waiting. Why, _why_
didn't you name her? It is the old story. She came unto her own, and
her own received her not."

"I--I never dreamt you would care to know her--her position, you
know," Mrs. Carne stammered disconcerted.

"Her position! What is her p