"No--never! I love meeting strangers. It is like opening a new book. You can never tell what good friends you may become. When I meet some one for the first time, I look into her eyes, and say to myself--`What is she? Why is she? What does she think? Right away down at the bottom of her heart, what is she like? Do we belong to each other at all, or is there no single point where we can meet?' It is so interesting! I assure you I drove through the City the other day in an omnibus, and discovered an affinity on the opposite seat! We just looked at each other, and a sort of flash passed from her eyes to mine, and I said to myself, `Oh, I _do_ like you!' and I knew as well as possible that she was thinking the same of me. We never spoke, and may never meet again, but we _were_ friends all the same, and when I went away I said in my heart, `Good-bye, dear, good luck! So pleased to have met you!' At other times I've seen people--Gr-r-r!" she hitched her shoulders to her ears and spread out her hands in disgust, "quite respectable and ordinary-looking creatures, but there! I wouldn't touch them with the end of my umbrella!" Eunice regarded her with pensive envy. "Oh dear, I wish I felt like that! It would be like a book, as you say. I love reading, but I always think real life is so different." "And so much better! It's _true_," cried Peggy ardently, "and the other is pretence. I think it's a glorious thing to live, and just most marvellously and wonderfully interesting. Why, think of it--every day is a mystery. You make your plans in the morning, but you know nothing of what may happen before night! People sigh and moan over the uncertainty of life, but that is ungrateful, for there are happy surprises as well as sad, and all sorts of pleasant things cropping up which one never expects. And it ought to go on growing more and more beautiful as we grow older, and can appreciate and understand." "Yes," sighed Eunice softly. "Oh yes, and so it will--for you, Peggy, at least, for you have the gift of happiness. I feel things too, but I can't express my feelings. I want to act, and I hang back trembling until some one else steps forward. I try to speak, and my lips won't move. You don't know how dreadful it is to feel as if two iron bands were placed round your mouth and would not _let_ you speak!" Peggy laughed in conscience-stricken fashion.