If we could read Susie’s busy thoughts, as she rode home communing with her own soul, to use a trite expression, we should find them running something in this wise: “This visit is a great step gained. I find I need not be modest. I know a thousand times more of flowers than does this great florist who has built up an immense and successful business; and what he knows of practical details more than I do, I can learn without the hard experience he has had. If I am prudent, I need not make any ruinous failures. Oh, to be rich! To own my own house, my own fortune, and never more be a dependent even upon the dearest and noblest people in the world! I may; I _must_ accomplish this. I must! I must! Minnie is bright and pretty. Better that she died than grow up poor and ignorant, to do the bidding of others. I wonder if she will be really intellectual—capable of being highly educated, capable of lofty sentiments and principles. Ah! I am not proud that one like Dan is her father, but not in all the world could she have better blood than that of Dr. Forest. Great, noble, generous man! He knows I am grateful, but he does not know I could kiss his feet, and not then express how I adore his character. In his eyes, I am just as good, just as virtuous, as if baby had never been born. In Mrs. Buzzell’s I am very dear, I know, but still a Magdalen. She would stand by me during good behavior; he would follow me with tender, helpful sympathy, if I should suffer any degradation. He would never lose hope that I could rise and atone for every folly. What a power there is in such trust. It must give the basest nature a very passion to justify it. So will I justify it, or I will die in the attempt. I could die any death much easier than I could take any course that would make him feel he had been mistaken in me. Yet they say he is not a Christian. He is irreverent. Mrs. Buzzell asked him if he had never suffered gloomy, despairing moods, and he assured her he had; but to her question, had he not, under such circumstances, felt the instinct to pray to God, he looked her calmly, seriously in the face, and said he should as soon think of finding relief in turning double-back somersaults. That was just what he said, and she knew he was perfectly truthful. He said, however, it was wise to pray, or go through any innocent manœuvre that would insure relief; and then he showed how the real method was distraction, as he called it—calling into action new faculties of the mind, and thus resting the overwrought ones. I don’t find it much use to pray. Praying cannot remove disgrace, and shame, and suffering; but I trust in the unknown power that underlies all things. That power must be God. Obeying our highest impulses is the only thing we are sure is right. My highest impulse is to work for baby—to make her life all that life can be to her. Yet I have one awful fear, whenever I think of the future. When she goes out among children, in the streets or