"Yes, my dear," he answered, drawing a seat near hers, "and I've been amused by the little window there for fifteen minutes, wondering what there was existing capable of making any one strike such a thoughtful attitude as yours." "Why, Mr. Rayne, all I could condense into my poor little brain at once, is not worth attracting your grand attention. But, I love to think: I have so many little ethereal friends that flock around me when I sit down to think, they are all my ideals, you know." She continued, clasping her hands enthusiastically, "In that little world of thought, where I drift so often in the day, there is none of that coldness nor selfishness that characterizes your material world. We are all equal, and we love one another so much! I don't know when it fascinated me first, but it seems so natural to me now to steal away there from the din of active life. But how is it _you_ always catch me just when I've forgotten that there is any reality at all?" "Because, I suppose," laughed Mr. Rayne "you are always in that state of blissful forgetfulness, and if you don't mind yourself you'll fall into a chronic state of dreaming, and then be no more to us than a veritable somnambulist, now, you wouldn't like that, would you?" "Oh, there is no fear of that, I am not spiritual enough yet to abandon stern reality altogether, but I fancy you will often tire of me before you grow quite accustomed to my strange caprices?" "Why my dear little Honor, is that the color you would have me paint your future? surely not. If Destiny has raised my hand to blend the colors in the fair scenery of your life, I will stain the canvas a '_couleur de rose_,' and make it a lovely thing to contemplate, if I possibly can, so do not ever sigh to-day for to-morrow, know beforehand that it will be just as you will have it." "Ah, ha! Mr. Rayne, who is waxing romantic now," the girl cried playfully, "I'm so glad to have caught you once. But do you know, I sometimes wonder, if all these days have not really been spent in my fairy land, for things have happened as harmoniously as though life were not a series of discords at its best, Nanette was not forced to leave me, and you did not get bored at my eccentricities, and I liked you so much right away, and our safe journey, and everything together." "Well, I hope it will convince you my child," said Rayne earnestly, "that life in its common-place acceptation is not so dreadful as you have pronounced it--wait a while--a little practical experience will serve to persuade you, that there are a few redeeming traits in the big, nasty world after all, and will force you to give up these wild theories of idealism that are strangely out of place in a young girl of our period."