An impulse that he would have found difficult to analyze led him to descend the steps and pick up the symbolic bud, now torn and withering fast, and to place it between the leaves of his note-book. If she had only seen this act it would have made a great difference; but, ever present to her thought, it lay where he had tossed it, the emblem of herself. Chapter XXXII. The Dangers of Despair. Discouragement and despair are dangerous and often destructive to character. This would be especially true of one like Ida Mayhew; for even in her imperfection she possessed a simplicity and unity which made it impossible for a part of such moral nature as she possessed to stand, if another part were undermined or broken down. The whole fabric would stand or fall together. She had been a wayward child, more neglected than petted, and had naturally developed a passion for having her own will, right or wrong. As she grew older, her extraordinary dower of beauty threatened to be a fatal one. It brought her attention continuous admiration and flattery from those who cared nothing for her personally. She had received in childhood but little of the praise which love prompts, the tender, indulgent idolatry which, although dangerous indeed to one's best development, sometimes softens and humanizes, instead of rendering selfish and arrogant. Mrs. Mayhew petted and scolded her child according to her mood, but was quite consistent in her general neglect. Mr. Mayhew was a tired, busy man, who visited at his own home rather than lived there. Thus the growing girl was left chiefly to her own impulses, and average human nature ensured that the habit of thinking of herself first and of pleasing herself at all times should be early formed. Then, as she saw and became capable of understanding the homage that waits on mere beauty, the world over, pride and vanity grew in overshadowing rankness. The attention she received, however, was chiefly made up of the bold stare of strangers, and the open flattery of those who admired her beauty as they would that of a picture, unconsciously but correctly leaving the impression that they cared for her only because of her beauty. That the girl's nature should grow hard and callous under such influences was what might have been expected. Neglect and a miserable sham of an education had dwarfed her mind. She had been "finished" by an ultra fashionable school before she understood the meaning of the studies which she passed over in a dainty quickstep, scarcely touching the surface.