"You must come and say them to me then, perhaps I might understand, and in any case I should not be shocked or pained." "They remind me of the Three Gray Sisters, although there are only two of them--one eye and one tooth between them." "I see--there is something we can talk about at all events," said the old man. "The Three Gray Sisters are friends of yours--are they?" "Not friends!" Haley one exclaimed emphatically. "I can't bear them, silly old things nodding there, with their ridiculous answers to Perseus, saying old things were better than new--and their day better than his--I should have thrown their eye into the sea if I had been he. Do all old people do that?--pretend their time was the best?--do you? I don't mean to." "You are right. It is a bad habit." "But are they better, the old things?" The old man did not answer for a moment or two. He looked his visitor through and through with his wise gray eyes--an investigation which might have disconcerted some people, but Halcyone was unabashed. "I know what you are doing," she said. "You are seeing the other side of my head--and I wish I could see the other side of yours, I can the Aunts' La Sarthe and Priscilla's, in a minute, but yours is different." "I am glad of that--you might be disappointed, though, if you did see what was there." "I always want to see," she said simply--"see everything; and sometimes I find the other side not a bit what this is--even in the birds and trees and the beetles. But you must have a huge big one." The old man laughed. "You and I are going to be good acquaintances," he said. "Tell me some more of Perseus. What more do you know of him?" "I have only read 'The Heroes,'" Halcyone admitted, "but I know it by heart--and I know it is all true though my governess says it is fairy-tales and not for girls. I want to learn Greek, but they can't teach me." "That is too bad." "When things are put vaguely I always want to know, them--I want to know why Medusa turned into a gorgon? What was her sin?" The old man smiled. "I see," said Halcyone, "you won't tell me, but some day I shall know." "Yes, some day you shall know," he said. "They seem such great people, those Greeks; they knew everything--so the preface of my 'Heroes' says, and I want to learn the things they knew--mathematics and geometry, rather--and especially logic and metaphysics, because I want to know the meaning of words and the art of reasoning, and above everything I want to know about my own thoughts and soul." "You strange little girl," said the old man. "Have you a soul?" "I don't know, I have something in there," and Halcyone pointed to her head--"and it talks to me like another voice, and when I am alone up a tree away from people, and all is beautiful, it seems to make it tight round here,--and go from my head into my side," and she placed her lean brown paw over her heart. "Yes--you perhaps have a soul," said the old man, and then he added, half to himself--"What a pity."