I protested against this injustice, and exhausted every argument to prove my superiority to such fickleness, but Mr. Rutledge remained unconvinced. "I do not say you are more fickle than are all other untamed young things of seventeen; it isn't your fault that you are not older and wiser; it is my misfortune. In the nature of things, you cannot stay forever ignorant and innocent, and indifferent to the world-- "'Let the wild falcon soar her swing, She'll stoop when she has tired her wing.'" "It's very strange," I said, "that you should tell me I must put myself in the way of the very temptations that you were so earnest in cautioning me against not long ago. Why must I go into society, when I don't want it? Why must I try the snares of the world, when, in reality, I am best content away from it?" "You must first know what it is you renounce, my pretty child; you must first see what other places are like, before you can judge whether Rutledge will content you, and what other friends are like, before you can tell how worthy of your affection this first one is. Wait till you are a little older; wait a year or two, and then if you still turn to Rutledge, it is your home forever." Wait a year or two! If he had said, "Wait till the early part of the twentieth century," it could hardly have seemed a more insupportable term of banishment. "Ah!" he said, with a sigh, "a year or two seems an age to you now; when you have passed through as many as I have, you'll begin to realize how short they are, how very small a part of a life they form, and how very quickly they pass." I shook my head. "They would go soon enough if there was anything pleasant to mark them; but if they are to be passed in longing for their end, they will be ages indeed." "No fear that the next two or three years of your life will be passed in that way, my friend. It would be a heavy blow, indeed, that would take the elasticity out of your spirit, and daunt the courage that I know will make your life a worthy one. Be true to yourself; keep your heart pure, and the world will not hurt you; you will only see how far it is from satisfying you." "Oh!" I exclaimed, "if I might never have to go in it! If I could _only_ stay here. You can't understand how miserable it makes me to go among strangers again. And I am so fond of this place! You need not be afraid that I shall get tired of it; I don't get tired of people and places when once I like them. Do you suppose I ever was tired of my own dear home, or ever would have been, if I had not been taken away from it?" And at that recollection the tears came blindingly into my eyes. "You have never told me about your home. Were you happy there?" he asked, kindly. "Tell me about it."