Then, in my miserable short-sightedness, my thoughts wandered indirectly to Rebecca. I wondered if she had taken to heart anything in the acquaintance she was said to have had with Mr. Rollin, before I came to Wallencamp, which had caused the change in her. I did not believe she had. The girl was too artless and simple to have concealed so completely the resentment she would naturally have cherished--too childish to have borne it so silently. As far as the fisherman was implicated in the affair, even if he had trifled a little for his own amusement with the vague impulses, possibly the affections, of this unsophisticated girl, the act was by no means unprecedented among people of wealth and respectability. It was a diversion in which Arthur Grey and Stephen Montgomery would not have indulged, perhaps, "but this," I mused, "is a sadly commonplace sort of world, viewed in the broad daylight of wisdom and experience (and with such penetrating rays I felt my own optics to be only too wearily oppressed); we must give up our high ideals, take people as we find then, and submit gracefully to the inevitable." Still I was in as much of a quandary as ever as to what I should choose to consider the inevitable in my own path. It never occurred to me in this dilemma to seek advice from the elder members of my own family. They knew nothing really of my situation in Wallencamp, and even if they had been informed more truthfully in regard to it, I thought they could hardly be expected to appreciate the peculiarly trying circumstances in which I was placed just at present. Mothers were excellent for mending gloves, taking ink stains out of white dresses with lemon juice, etc., etc.; but there were certain exigencies in the remote and exalted life of those who go on "missions" which their humble though loving skill must ever fail to reach. I did write home, by the way, for more spending-money. I had been obliged to send to Boston for a few of the latest novels, fresh ribbons, cologne water, and various other articles indispensable to the career of a truly devoted propagandist. I preferred my request no longer as the dependent offspring seeking gifts from a fond and indulgent parent, but as the solicitor of a mere temporary loan, until I should be able to draw on my salary at the close of the term. One morning, having inured myself to extreme worldliness of soul and begun a deliberately reckless response to the fisherman's letter, I looked out through my window to see the Cradlebow trudging manfully down the lane, with a grotesquely antiquated portmanteau in his hand, and the general air of one who has started a-foot on a journey. With a singular readiness to be diverted, I found that the picture was, somehow, not conducive to further worldliness of meditation; and when in the evening, Mrs. Cradlebow came in to call, in her mantilla, the impression thus made on my mind was inexpressibly deepened.