"That is because every principle of your being is at war with common-places. Tell me frankly, Miss Sarah, did you ever meet another woman who had as much character as yourself?" "I do not know that I understand the full bearing of your question." She leaned on the side of the boat, her hand playing in the water, her lips working in an irresolute timidity that was oddly at variance with their habitual firmness. "I am aware," she began slowly and gravely, "that I express myself too strongly at times; that I am more abrupt in language and action than most other girls. I have always been told so; but it is natural to me. My character has many rough and sharp edges that need softening and rounding"-- "In order to render you one of the pretty automatons, the well-draped, thoroughly-oiled pieces of human clockwork that decorates men's homes--falsely so called--in these days of gloss and humbug!" interrupted Philip with energy. "I am sick to death of the dollish 'sweet creatures' every boarding-school turns out by the score. I understand all the wires that work the dear puppets--flatter myself that I can put them through their paces (excuse the slang!) in as short a time as any other man of my age in the country. The delightful divinities! A little music, and a little less French; a skimming of the arts and sciences; and it is a rare thing to meet one who can tell an art from a science ten days after she has graduated--a stock of pet phrases--all hyperbolical, consequently unmeaning--a glib utterance of the same; a steady devotion to balls, beau-catching, gossip, and fancy-work; voila the modern fine lady--the stuff we are expected to make wives of! Wives! save the mark! I never think of the possibility of being thus ensnared without an involuntary repetition of a portion of the Litany--'From all such, etc., etc.!'" He plied his oars with renewed activity for a moment, then suspended them to continue, in a softer tone: "And this is the representative woman of your Utopia, Miss Sarah?" "Did I intimate, much less assert, such a heresy?" responded she, laughing. "But there is a golden mean somewhere--a union of gentleness and energy; of domestic and literary taste; of independence and submission. I have seen such in my day dreams. She is my ideal." "Which you will one day embody. No reproachful looks! This is the sincerity of a friend. I have promised never to flatter you again, and do not violate the pledge in speaking thus. From my boyhood, I have made human nature my study, and it would be hard to convince me that I err in this case." "You do! indeed you do!" exclaimed Sarah, with a look of real pain. "I lack the first characteristic of the portrait I have drawn. I am not gentle! I never was. I fear that I never will be!"