"Why, Emily," she said, "I never feel like annihilating people whose ideas are all wrong. They are but representatives at the most, and I would rather desire to help these eaters of husks to find the true bread that shall bring to them comfort and peace. I should wish to fill their hearts so full that the rays of this inner light shall radiate around them, touching with the magic of good deeds all the suffering our world contains. This would leave no empty rooms in the house of our understanding; all would be filled with tenants of good-will and loving faith, bearing charity and love each toward the other; and uncultivated fields would be found no more. I thought if I could touch Miss North in the right spot, I might fill her mind, for a few brief hours at least, with something beside her gossip. If this could be done every day in the week, she would lose sight of it altogether, and like a tree engrafted with better fruit, on these new thought-branches beautiful wisdom apples might grow and ripen. If she comes again I will find something as new to her, I hope, as I have found to-day." "What a wonderful compound you are, Clara," I said, "and what perfect symmetry nature has given to you, while I am your antipodes." "What's that you are calling yourself?" said Aunt Hildy. "Oh, something just different from all that is good and true enough to belong to Clara!" "'Pears to me you're gettin' some dretful big word now-a-days; when you want me to understand you, talk plain English." Hal, who had entered that moment, laughed heartily. "So I say, Aunt Hildy. Our Emily is going to be a blue-stocking, I fear. Housework will suffer before long, for housework and book cannot go together." "No more than ploughs and plaster," I added. "Not a bit more, sister mine," and he passed his arm around my waist,--he often did this now-a-days,--and whispered, "give me a chance to say something to you." I nodded an assent, and he passed on through the room, whistling to himself "Bonny Doon." I embraced the first opportunity to follow him, and found him alone in his studio. He seated himself beside me, took one hand in his and passed an arm around me. I wished he could have been my lover then, in fact, I often wished it, for he was as good as he was handsome, both noble hearted and noble looking. He was to me the embodiment of all that was good and all that went to make the best man in the world. "Emily," he began, "you have been a blessed sister to me; I have loved you always, even though I plagued you so much, and you have been faithful to me. I entrusted to you the first great secret of my life, when I sought you under the apple tree." "Why could you not have told me more?" I said.