“When I see,” continued Mrs Gray, oratorically, “young people going out on the world with such false notions as most of them have, poor things, it grieves me, Mrs Buchanan. So little as there is to enjoy after all, even if they get all they expect.” Mrs Buchanan, like Mr Oswald, had an old-fashioned prejudice that there was something orthodox in all this; a prejudice which made her diffident of answering. “Poor things!” she echoed, with a slight falter; “but after all, Mrs Gray, we had light hearts in our own youth, and why should we discourage them? Sorrow aye comes soon enough.” A sigh from Lilias sounded like an assent: and the Lily of Mossgray indeed bent her weary head and assented. She began to believe that sorrow--nothing but sorrow--was the common lot. But Helen’s face was flushing--her small head growing erect. Mrs Gray turned round--she was no coward--to face her vowed antagonist. “Miss Buchanan, my dear, I am speaking the truth. People say that the happiest part of life is youth; now just look at yourself. Toiling and labouring with these children; wearied with them every night, but just having to begin again every morning! with little time to yourself--to visit your friends, or read, or whatever you might choose. My dear, just look at it yourself. What have you to enjoy?” Helen started. “I have all the world--not this little humble house--not that school-room only; but the earth, and the sky, and the sea! Look at them--look at what God gives us--the sunshine and the clouds--the hills and the rivers--and you ask me what I have to enjoy? I have all the world! the weariness and the rest, the labour and the sleep, the night and the day, they are all given us, waiting our pleasures like the spirits of the old dreams. There is no one born into the earth who is not born rich, richer than kings, for we have all the world.” Mrs Gray was not prepared to answer this; she turned away to look from the window at the flowers, and prudently shook her head, half at the wild doctrine, and half at the eager manner; but she tilted no more at that time with Helen. “Will you walk up with me to Mossgray, Helen?” said Lilias, in the subdued melancholy voice which made the petition more urgent than a command; and Helen consented at once. As they descended the steps at the bridge, and waded through the long, thick grass, which spread between the backs of the Fendie houses and the river, the pensive calm of Lilias touched the variable spirit of her friend. They began to talk in that tone of half-playful sadness which often veils over griefs which the speakers would not tell. It is the mood of speculation; and they were neither of them too old for the girlish dreamy fancies, half-superstitious, which belong to our imaginative years.