I had no suggestion to offer, so I drank my coffee silently. She studied my face a moment, and then she said: “Yes--yes, you will, I tell you! But, _how_! You are not aggressive enough to win by _force_! Oh, you can fight fast enough, flaring nostrils! but you will always fight on the defensive. You are clever, but you are not clever enough! Intellect isn’t going to win for you. How _are_ you going to do it? Yet you are to dominate, to have power. I’ve seen it in the arch of your bared foot, in the unbeautiful square of your shoulders, in the tenacious grasp of your hand. If you had great beauty now--there, don’t redden that way: never blush above the eyes, it’s not becoming--you are all right; you’re straight, and fair, and wholesome. You have enough good looks for men to hang their lies upon, but you have not a world-conquering beauty. Deuce take me, girl, if I can make it!” While she had been harrying me I had once turned my head to see why the room had darkened so noticeably, and saw a heavy fog was creeping in from the lake, and now that she had come to her “giving it up” place, she turned her eyes slowly toward their usual resting place, the lake, and a quick change came over her. She started a little, then her head drooped slowly until her chin rested on her hand. With unwinking eyes she stared straight ahead of her, while gradually the brightness all died out of them, a slightly distressed raising of her brows threw deep furrows across her forehead, her nostrils were pinched, her thin lips tight pressed, while over all her face grew a look only to be described by one word--a look of woe! It wrung my heart! I looked and looked at her--the tears rose thick in my eyes, then slowly, slowly I seemed to understand, to _know_, what was grieving her. It was the surrounding fog, silently, steadily, blotting out everything between heaven and earth! Even her longing mother’s eyes could not pierce that soft density, could not distinguish the purplish, dark line that, to her belief, marked her darlings’ resting place out there in the great lake. I bore it as long as I could, and then I leant across the tiny table, and, laying my warm hand upon her chill one, I said: “Dear Mrs. Worden, do not grieve, the fog often lifts at sunset. Then, perhaps, you may see the purple line before the night comes on!” Her eyes came slowly back to mine, she smiled gratefully at me, and then all suddenly the fire flashed into them again. She rose to her feet, her head held high in her imperious way, and cried, triumphantly: “I have it now, girl! You have given me the clue! You will succeed by your power of sympathy! You will not fight the world, you will open your great heart to its sorrows, and the many-headed public will neither growl at nor tear you, but will come at your call, your friend and your defender. When you know you have succeeded, say once to yourself, ‘Old Myra saw, old Myra told me true.’”