“My dear child,” said Miss Carrington, coming over to put her arm gently around Anne with an intense desire to get at the cause of her emotion, “you are young, and I am at least elderly. You are alone in Cleavedge. Won’t you trust me, my dear, and tell me what is wrong? I can hold my tongue, I assure you, and I know what it is to be alone.” “It isn’t myself only, Miss Carrington,” said Anne. “How could it be? Did you ever hear of a human experience that was? My dear, it’s my opinion that we not only cannot be separated to ourselves in this world, but as a rule we should not have troubles if it weren’t for other people! Won’t you let me try to help?” Miss Carrington persisted. Anne shook her head. “Thank you, nevertheless,” she said. “This is not the sort of thing that any one else can help, nor I, either, I’m afraid.” “Let me guess!” Miss Carrington took Anne’s hands, cold from hard weeping, between her silky palms, the soft, cool, frail hands of an old gentlewoman. “Let me guess! At your age there can be but one cause of such violent weeping, so I can easily conjecture. You have just discovered what I have known all along, that Richard Latham loves you.” She hoped that this was a good guess and not that this weeping concerned Kit; she held Anne’s hands fast in spite of her attempts to pull them away, disregarding her protesting: “No, no, no!” “Known all along?” Anne repeated her last words, startled out of her caution. “Surely, my dear. My nephew and I have discussed it; we hope that it is true,” Miss Carrington assured her, stretching the small “we” to fit her need. “It frightens you? You are such a dear, maidenly, old-time girl that I suppose we must allow for your first shrinking when you learn that you are loved. Then, of course, it awes you to think that it is a poet, Richard Latham, who loves you, a poet and a blind poet! But, oh, my dear, my dear, how inappropriate are your tears! How blessed, how exalted you are! By his genius, certainly, but by his need of you more. A woman is blessed exactly in proportion to the need of her in those she loves. Mr. Latham not only loves you, as we all saw, devotedly, devoutly--that is the better word!--but he loves you with such complete dependence upon you that it is no exaggeration to say that, though he might not die if he lost you, he would in no real sense go on living if he were deprived of you. To be the life of such a man! To be his inspiration and his repose! Indeed I congratulate you, I would envy you were I not done with life. And I am sure from what I know of you that perfect happiness could not come to you except in the opportunity to devote yourself. You are not ambitious, like, for instance, the handsome girl who will be Kit’s wife. Of course her ambition will help Kit, who is going in for a career. It is a most satisfactory arrangement to me, but it would not do for you! I don’t mind admitting to you that Helen’s ideals are less fine than yours,