And again Althea blushed. She looked down, sitting straightly in the corner of their sofa and turning her fan slowly between her fingers, and, feeling the sense of gracelessness in this too easy success, Gerald went on in a graver tone. 'I wish you would let me be serious with you sometimes, Miss Jakes; you'd see I'd quite redeem myself in your eyes.' 'Redeem yourself? From what?' 'Oh! from all your impression of my frivolity and folly. I can talk about art and literature and the condition of the labouring classes as wisely as anybody, I assure you.' He said it so prettily that Althea had to laugh. 'But what makes you think I can?' she asked, and, delighted with the happy result of his appeal, he said that Helen had told him all about her wisdoms. He sounded these wisdoms next day when he asked her to walk with him to the village. He told her, as they walked, of the various projects for using his life to some advantage that he had used to make--projects for improved agricultural methods and the bettering of the conditions of life in the country. Althea had read a great deal of political economy. She had, indeed, ground at it and mastered it in the manner advised by Franklin to Helen. Gerald found her quiet comments and criticisms very illuminating, not only of his theme, but of his own comparative ignorance. 'But, Miss Jakes, how did you come to understand all this?' he ejaculated; and she said, laughing a little at the impression she had made, that she had only read, gone to a few courses of lectures, and had a master for one winter in Boston. Gerald looked at her with new interest. It impressed him that an unprofessional woman should take anything so seriously. 'Have you gone into other profound things like this?' he asked; and, still laughing, Althea said that she supposed she had. Her sympathy for those old plans of his, based on such understanding, was really inspiring. 'Ah, if only I had the money,' he sighed. 'But you wouldn't care to live in the country?' said Althea. 'There's nowhere else I really care to live. Nothing would please me so much as to spend the rest of my life at Merriston, dabbling at my painting and going in seriously for farming.' 'Why don't you do it?' 'Why, money! I've got no money. It's expensive work to educate oneself by experience, and I'm ignorant. You show me how ignorant. No; I'm afraid I'm to go on drifting, and never lead the life I best like.' Althea was silent. She hardly knew what she was feeling, but it pressed upon her so, that she was afraid lest a breath would stir some consciousness in him. She had money, a good deal. What a pity that he had none. 'Now you,' Gerald went on, 'have all sorts of big, wise plans for life, I've no doubt. It would interest me to hear about them.' 'No; I drift too,' said Althea. 'You can't call it drifting when you read and study such a lot.' 'Oh yes, I can, when there is no real aim in the work. You should hear Mr. Kane scold me about that.'