"You appreciate my Hilda, Peter; I am glad." Katherine gave his abstracted countenance another of her bright contemplative glances. There was nothing sly in Katherine's glances, and yet underlying this one was a world of kindly, though very keen analysis; disappointment, rebellion, and level-headed tolerance. This was decidedly not the man to be fitted to her frame. He could not be moulded to a clever woman's liking, for all his indefiniteness. On certain points of the conduct of life, Katherine felt that she would meet an opposition sharply definite. Katherine understood and was perfectly tolerant of criticism, but she did not like it; nor did she like being put in the wrong. That Peter now considered her very much in the wrong was evident. She was also aware that the sophistry of her explanation had deceived herself even less than it had deceived him. That Hilda spent her life in drudgery, and that she spent hers in pleasure-seeking, were facts most palpable to Katherine's very impartial vision. She knew she was wrong, and she knew that only frank avowal would meet Peter's severity and touch his tenderness and humor. If she heaped shame on her own head, he would be the first to cry out against the injustice. Yet Katherine hesitated to own herself wrong. She was not sure that she cared to place her lover in the sheltering and leading attitude of the Love in the "Love and Life." The meek, trembling look of Life had always irritated her in the picture. Katherine felt herself quite strong enough to stand alone, and felt that she would like to lead in all things. It was with a deep inner sense of humiliation that she said-- "Please don't be cross with me, Peter. Please don't scold me. I have been naughty--far naughtier than I dreamed of--you have made me realize it, though you are not quite just. But you must comfort me for my own misdoings." As Katherine went on she felt an artistic impulsiveness, almost real, and which sounded so real that Peter met the sweet pleading of her eyes with a start of self-disgust. Peter was very tender-hearted, very sympathetic, very prone to self-doubt. Katherine's look made him feel a very prig of pompous righteousness. "Why, Katherine!" he said, pausing in his walk. "My dear Katherine! as if I could not appreciate the slow growth of necessity! I only hope you may never have to comfort me for far worse sins!" This was satisfactory. But Katherine's pride still squirmed.