There are some who cherish this pet delusion through life, who are always superior. Should such have women dependent upon them the fate of those women is scarcely enviable. They are expected to walk through life inferior. But in the lives of most men there is an awakening. Sometimes the favorite pursuit--science, art, literature--rising gradually into vaster proportions as it is more ardently followed, dwarfs the man in his own estimation by contrast with what he seeks. The ideal being ever so far in advance, he begins to take a truer estimate of his powers and to try to enlarge them. Sometimes it is the world of life, contact with other minds and the feeling of their superiority; sometimes it is the world of nature, its beauty and its mystery. These are the majority. To a few perhaps--a very few--the awakening comes from another power. It _is_ a power, whatever may be said to the contrary, a great power for good or for evil--the power of beauty, as it rests brooding on God's last and fairest gift to man--woman. The mind, the imagination, the heart, all that had lain hidden under the crust of self-seeking, rises into play in a moment, and the man is changed. Such a man can never despise woman, for the one particular star--distant, unattainable in all probability--sheds its lustre upon all that partake of its nature. If the woman who has gained this power can only use it, not selfishly, but grandly, truly, the change for the man is a resurrection into new life. If not--Who shall say how many young souls have been ruined, perhaps for ever, by this same "if not"? To return to the May afternoon and the scene in the picture-gallery. If any painter had been near he could scarcely have chosen a more powerful subject. The young man who had first discovered the fainting woman did not consider himself a very emotional person, but for a moment he was absolutely staggered. He had risen hastily to his feet and stooped over her unconsciously. There he remained, helpless as a child in the presence of a mystery it is unable to solve. It was only for a moment that the stupor held him; then, with a feeling that was very strange and new, he summoned courage to raise her head upon his arm, and with trembling fingers to loosen her scarf and bonnet-strings. What was to be done next? Water, smelling-salts, a fan--he had not one of these appliances to restore her, and he shrank painfully from gathering a crowd by asking assistance; for as yet the back of the seat had hidden her from the very few who were still walking through the galleries, those few being mostly lovers of art, and too much absorbed in the pictures to have ears or eyes for anything beyond them.