He tried to formulate what he would care to say. But, perhaps just because he was too tired to say it right, the life the robin in the nearest tree was that moment celebrating in song seemed more important than anything he had to say about his own feeling toward the things men had thought about the human soul. It was ten minutes before closing time, but suddenly he turned to his class with: “Go out-of-doors and think about it. This is no day to sit within and talk of philosophy. What men have thought about life in the past is less important than what you feel about it to-day.” He paused, then added, he could not have said why, “And don't let the shadow of either belief or unbelief fall across the days that are here for you now.” Again he stopped, then surprised himself by ending, “Philosophy should quicken life, not deaden it.” They were not slow in going, their astonishment in his wanting them to go quickly engulfed in their pleasure in doing so. It was only Gretta who lingered a moment, seeming too held by his manner in sending her out into the sunshine to care about going there. He thought she was going to come to the desk and speak to him. He was sure she wanted to. But at the last she went hastily, and he thought, just before she turned her face away, that it was a tear he saw on her lashes. Strange! Was she unhappy, she through whom life surged so richly? And yet was it not true, that where it gave much it exacted much? Feeling much, and understanding what she felt, and feeling for what she understood--must she also suffer much? Must one always pay? He sighed, and began gathering together his papers. Thoughts about life tired him to-day. On the steps he paused, unreasonably enough a little saddened as he watched some of them beginning a tennis game. Certainly they were losing no time--eager to let go thoughts about life for its pleasures, very few of them awake to that rich life he had tried to make them ready for. He drooped still more wearily at the thought that perhaps the most real gift he had for them was that unexpected ten minutes. Remembering a book he must have from the library, he turned back. He went to the alcove where the works on philosophy were to be found, and was reaching up for the volume he wanted, when a sentence from a lowly murmured conversation in the next aisle came to him across the stack of books. “That's all very well; we know, of course, that he doesn't believe, but what will he do when it comes to _himself?_” It arrested him, coming as it did from one of the girls who had just left his class-room. He stood there motionless, his hand still reaching up for the book. “Do? Why, face it, of course. Face it as squarely as he's faced every other fact of life.” That was Gretta, and though, mindful of the library mandate for silence, her tone was low, it was vibrant with a fine scorn. “Well,” said the first speaker, “I guess he'll have to face it before very long.”