But that which touched her most was Achilles' speech to the old king, when he came a suppliant to his hut in the night. The two urns standing by the throne of Jupiter, one full of curses, one full of blessings arrested her attention. Was it not true? Did the god not deal a mingled lot to most of his creatures, but gave them an enduring soul to bear it? The best and most beautiful things in the world were fraught with sorrow. The sunset often made her sad; equally sad sounded the singing of birds in spring; and love, the love of father, mother, husband, child, was saddest of all. This she had learnt among her friends of the dale. She read on to the end of the book, where the mourners sat down to the sepulchral feast: "And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade." Then she closed the volume and looked at Timothy. "Why do we sup it so eagerly?" she asked. "It's a poisoned cup to some, a bitter one to most, and sweet only to a few, a very few." The old man knew that she referred to life. "There was a preacher once," he said, "who thought it a burden too heavy to be borne. He believed in re-birth, countless re-births through generations, and the idea filled him with despair. His name was Gautama, but people called him Buddha, the Enlightened One, the Enlightener. He found a way of salvation and opened it to men." "Was it a good way?" "Judge for thyself, Barbara. _The mind_" he said, "_approaching the eternal, has attained to the extinction of all desires?_" She mused for a moment upon the words. "I don't like them," she replied, "If I had no desires I shouldn't be Barbara Lynn but a lump of clay." "Then drink the cup. Buddha turned it upside down so that it could hold nothing. He emptied it of the sweetness as well as the bitterness. But thou, hold it up to be filled and drink." "I shall have sorrow, Timothy?" "Yes, child." "Pain and disappointment." "It is the lot of those who would dig to find the riches of their own nature." "The soil might be poor, and suffering turn up nought but dead ashes." "Tears fertilize it, Barbara." "Do you think that's the reason we have so much to bear? Should we be like weakly flowers, things that would wither up with the heat of the sun, or the cold winds o' winter, if suffering did not set us to deep trenching?" All the vehemence had died out of her voice now. Speech had sunk to the meditative tones of every day life. "Contentment leads to shallowness," said the old man. "If you had been born in a great house instead of an upland farm, I doubt if you would have striven so hard to know and understand things that lie far out of your beaten track." "I've got a bitter envy towards those who have chances denied to me." "To some learning may be the goal; to you it may be the means to a higher goal." "What dost mean, Timothy?" "You're a better scholar at self-discipline than at your books, my lass." Her face fell and she looked disappointed.