“Thank you,” said Noel; “it was awfully interesting.” And she walked away. The sky had become full of clouds round the westerly sun; and the foreign crinkled tracery of the plane-tree branches against that French-grey, golden-edged mass, was very lovely. Beauty, and the troubles of others, soothed her. She felt sorry for the painter, but his eyes saw too much! And his words: “If ever you act differently from others,” made her feel him uncanny. Was it true that people always disliked and condemned those who acted differently? If her old school-fellows now knew what was before her, how would they treat her? In her father's study hung a little reproduction of a tiny picture in the Louvre, a “Rape of Europa,” by an unknown painter—a humorous delicate thing, of an enraptured; fair-haired girl mounted on a prancing white bull, crossing a shallow stream, while on the bank all her white girl-companions were gathered, turning half-sour, half-envious faces away from that too-fearful spectacle, while one of them tried with timid desperation to mount astride of a sitting cow, and follow. The face of the girl on the bull had once been compared by someone with her own. She thought of this picture now, and saw her school fellows-a throng of shocked and wondering girls. Suppose one of them had been in her position! 'Should I have been turning my face away, like the rest? I wouldn't no, I wouldn't,' she thought; 'I should have understood!' But she knew there was a kind of false emphasis in her thought. Instinctively she felt the painter right. One who acted differently from others, was lost. She told her father of the encounter, adding: “I expect he'll come, Daddy.” Pierson answered dreamily: “Poor fellow, I shall be glad to see him if he does.” “And you'll sit to him, won't you?” “My dear—I?” “He's lonely, you know, and people aren't nice to him. Isn't it hateful that people should hurt others, because they're foreign or different?” She saw his eyes open with mild surprise, and went on: “I know you think people are charitable, Daddy, but they aren't, of course.” “That's not exactly charitable, Nollie.” “You know they're not. I think sin often just means doing things differently. It's not real sin when it only hurts yourself; but that doesn't prevent people condemning you, does it?” “I don't know what you mean, Nollie.” Noel bit her lips, and murmured: “Are you sure we're really Christians, Daddy?” The question was so startling, from his own daughter, that Pierson took refuge in an attempt at wit. “I should like notice of that question, Nollie, as they say in Parliament.” “That means you don't.” Pierson flushed. “We're fallible enough; but, don't get such ideas into your head, my child. There's a lot of rebellious talk and writing in these days....”