“Going there and travelling. That has been the trouble. I have very little money. I give lessons,” said Miss Spencer. “Of course one must have money,” I said, “but one can manage with a moderate amount.” “I think I should manage. I have laid something by, and I am always adding a little to it. It’s all for that.” She paused a moment, and then went on with a kind of suppressed eagerness, as if telling me the story were a rare, but a possibly impure satisfaction, “But it has not been only the money; it has been everything. Everything has been against it I have waited and waited. It has been a mere castle in the air. I am almost afraid to talk about it. Two or three times it has been a little nearer, and then I have talked about it and it has melted away. I have talked about it too much,” she said hypocritically; for I saw that such talking was now a small tremulous ecstasy. “There is a lady who is a great friend of mine; she does n’t want to go; I always talk to her about it. I tire her dreadfully. She told me once she didn’t know what would become of me. I should go crazy if I did not go to Europe, and I should certainly go crazy if I did.” “Well,” I said, “you have not gone yet, and nevertheless you are not crazy.” She looked at me a moment, and said, “I am not so sure. I don’t think of anything else. I am always thinking of it. It prevents me from thinking of things that are nearer home, things that I ought to attend to. That is a kind of craziness.” “The cure for it is to go,” I said. “I have a faith that I shall go. I have a cousin in Europe!” she announced. We turned over some more photographs, and I asked her if she had always lived at Grimwinter. “Oh, no, sir,” said Miss Spencer. “I have spent twenty-three months in Boston.” I answered, jocosely, that in that case foreign lands would probably prove a disappointment to her; but I quite failed to alarm her. “I know more about them than you might think,” she said, with her shy, neat little smile. “I mean by reading; I have read a great deal I have not only read Byron; I have read histories and guidebooks. I know I shall like it.” “I understand your case,” I rejoined. “You have the native American passion,--the passion for the picturesque. With us, I think it is primordial,--antecedent to experience. Experience comes and only shows us something we have dreamt of.” “I think that is very true,” said Caroline Spencer. “I have dreamt of everything; I shall know it all!” “I am afraid you have wasted a great deal of time.” “Oh, yes, that has been my great wickedness.” The people about us had begun to scatter; they were taking their leave. She got up and put out her hand to me, timidly, but with a peculiar brightness in her eyes. “I am going back there,” I said, as I shook hands with her. “I shall look out for you.” “I will tell you,” she answered, “if I am disappointed.” And she went away, looking delicately agitated, and moving her little straw fan. II.