I had not walked along the beach, with the waves sighing at my feet, and whispering all sorts of soothing nothings, for a great distance, before I began to experience that uncomfortable reaction which sometimes arises from splitting in two, as it were, standing off at a distance and looking oneself in the face. I realized that I had been something of a prig and considerable of a Pharisee. My late discomfort was not caused by the fact that a young girl had cheapened herself, but by the fact that a man had demeaned himself and in a manner involved me, inasmuch as I had been led the day before by a false estimate of his character to regard him as my social equal. After all it was this last that hurt most; it was my little self and not my brother about whom I was chiefly concerned. I am not naturally sentimental or morbid, so I merely decided that internally I had made a goose of myself and not shown any surplus of nobility; and with a little sigh of satisfaction that I had given the small world about me no sign of my folly, I dismissed the subject and betook myself to an eager enjoyment of the day. The soft June breeze played with my hair and gently and affectionately touched my face; the lake quivering and rippling with passing emotions stretched away from me toward that other shore which it kept secreted somewhere on its farther side. The very sight of it, with its shimmering greens, turquoise blue, and tawny yellow, cooled and soothed me, and ere I knew it, I had slipped into a pleasant, active speculation on matters of larger interest than the petty subjects which had lined my brow a moment before. I was walking directly toward one of my families, and it occurred to me that I might run in and make a call, while I was near at hand. I had first become interested in them at church. I was impressed by their cleanliness and regularity of attendance, and by a certain judicious arrangement of their children—the parents always sitting so as to separate the latter by their authority and order.